director
Betty Thomas
screenwriters
Len Blum
Michael Kalesniko
based on
the book by
Howard Stern
producer
Ivan Reitman
cinematographer
Walt Lloyd
music
Van Dyke Parks
editor
Peter Teschner
cast
Howard Stern (Himself)
Robin Quivers (Herself)
Mary McCormack (Alison Stern)
Fred Norris (Himself)
Paul Giamatti ('Pig Vomit')
Gary Dell'Abate (Himself)
Jackie Martling (Himself)
Carol Alt (Gloria)
Richard Portnow (Ben Stern)
Allison Janney (Dee Dee)
Michael Murphy (Roger Erlick)
Althea Cassidy (The Kielbasa Queen)
Jenna Jameson (Mandy)
Many rock stars and quasi-celebrities as themselves
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 109m
u.s.
release: March 7, 1997
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
other betty
thomas films
reviewed on this website:
- the
brady bunch movie
|
Howard
Stern is the fourth controversial bad boy in as many months to
get a movie made about him, the other three being Larry
Flynt and Beavis
and Butt-Head. Of the four, I prefer Beavis and Butt-Head:
At least they didn't get a mainstream face-lift the way Flynt
and Stern have, and nobody touted them as defenders of free speech
or champions of good, dirty fun. If pornographers and shock-jocks
insist on their right to be offensive, why do they seem to crave
our respect and approval?
Private Parts, which stars Stern as himself, is just about
the last word in disingenuous self-glorification. The movie is
less offensive than defensive. Poor Howard! Nobody understands
him. Some of the film is funny; I laughed at Stern's battles
with his priggish boss, played to cartoonish perfection by Paul
Giamatti. But overall it plays like another stage of Stern's
ongoing campaign to win the hearts and minds of America.
What's limp and soft about Private Parts is that it aims
shamelessly for the heart (when it isn't elbowing us in the ribs
with all the leering about lesbians) and misses the mind. That
sounds like an absurd criticism, but I've heard Stern on the
radio and read his first book, and he can be genuinely witty
(when he isn't being cutesy and puerile). If you don't believe
me, here's no less a comedy authority than Albert Brooks quoted
in a recent New Yorker piece on Stern: "What makes
him really special is simple: he's funny ... Howard has wit,
and wit stands out like crazy."
Not in this movie, it doesn't. Instead we get scenes calculated
to show us what a sensitive mensch Howard really is. I
don't doubt that Stern loves his heroically patient wife Alison
(played here by Murder One's Mary McCormack in a warm
and bemused performance), but I was uncomfortable with the way
the movie keeps trotting her out as proof that the sultan of
shock radio has a tender side. The script also glides right over
Alison's fury at Stern for joking on the air about her miscarriage.
Gee, doesn't she get it? It's all in fun.
Private Parts follows a familiar comedy arc: it's Good
Morning New York, with the fearless radio hero fighting uptight
bureaucrats and coming to grips with his own libido instead of
the horrors of war. Director Betty Thomas (The
Brady Bunch Movie) works with her usual wobbly tone of
deadpan irony, and the movie is cruddy-looking (surprising, coming
from cinematographer Walt Lloyd, who shot sex, lies and videotape)
and ineptly staged. Guaranteed laugh-getters like Fartman and
the Kielbasa Queen (whose infamous trick is ruined by intrusive
reaction shots) turn out not to be so guaranteed.
As for Stern, he may be the master of his domain on the radio,
but he doesn't necessarily have a future in movies. He isn't
bad in Private Parts -- he has some inspired sad-sack
moments playing himself as a dorky college kid who can't even
score with a blind woman. But what comes next? What's left to
discover in this man who blurts out his life and fantasies on
the air and in books? In Private Parts, Howard Stern does
in cinematic terms what he did all through college. By the end,
you realize he's pretty much shot his wad. |