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Dancing_P [ 7.5 ]
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One of Allen's ''early, funny ones'', based on a popular book of the same title. Allen takes on a few taboo questions about sex here with a series of absurd skits. The first skit has Allen as a court jester who slips the Queen (Lynn Redgrave) an aphrodisiac in an attempt to seduce her. It's amiable slapstick, full of silly puns... it's also the most dated of the segments. Many of the jokes are simply playing off the shock value of talking about sex on-screen in 1972. The second segment features the hilarious Gene Wilder as a doctor who falls in love with a sheep. It's incredibly ridiculous but also incredibly hilarious. It's followed by a dead-on parody of Italian arthouse films featuring Woody as the Mastroianni-esque seductor and Louise Lasser as his frigid girlfriend. Next is a mostly average story of a man and his desire to wear women's clothes while meeting his in-laws; it's very sitcomish and is frankly nothing special. It's the weakest segment of the film. Jack Barry cameos as himself in the next segment as he hosts a game show called What's My Perversion? in which panelists (including Regis freakin' Philbin) must discover a participant's fetish. It is followed by a horror movie parody starring John Carradine as a mad scientist who studies human sexuality and eventually unleashes a gigantic boob on the world. Despite the juvenile boob humor, it's a fairly funny segment. It ends with an absolutely hilarious segment taking place inside the male body during intercourse. Tony Randall and Burt Reynolds (now THAT'S random casting) play two operators while Allen steps into the role of a neurotic sperm. EYAWAS is strange for Allen; low-brow, absurd humor with little regard as to character or plot... but he does it well.
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kcremer [ 7.5 ]
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Woody Allen's collection of skits named after a book by David Reuben. Some are pretty funny, some are witty if not quite funny, and one or two don't really work at all. My favorite ones are "What is Sodomy?" with Gene Wilder (comic gold!), the Frankenstein-esque "Are the Findings of Sexual Researchers Accurate?" (I love the title of Victor's (Allen) book "Advanced Sexual Positions: How to Achieve Them Without Laughing"). And of course the best one of all - "What Happens When a Man Ejaculates?"
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mike [ 9.0 ]
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Saw it first when I was a kid. The sight of Gene Wilder in bed with a sheep wearing stockings scarred me for much of my youth. Definately worth seeing.
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Corto [ 7.0 ]
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I never knew Woody could handle such a wide variety of stylistic satire. My favourite bits were Why Do Some Women Have Trouble Getting Orgasms? and of course the gratifying final What happens during ejaculation?.
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DokBrowne [ 8.0 ]
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Sketch 1 (Do Aphrodisiacs Work?) = B-. Goes on too long and the chastity belt material isn't very funny, but his many quips are vintage Allen stand-up
Sketch 2 (What is Sodomy?) = B+. Gene Wilder needs to have been in more movies. His long, silent reaction to the man saying he's in love with a sheep is fucking hilarious, as is the sight of the sheep wearing black stockings
Sketch 3 (Why Do Some Women Have Trouble Getting Orgasms?) = B-. Some sharp lines, and it's notable for its creative (if pointless) use of Italian language instead of English and an uncommonly controlled performance from Woody Allen himself, but it's never very interesting or amusing
Sketch 4 (Are Transvestites Really Homosexuals?) = D. Woefully lame yet mercifully short cross-dressing bit whose only joke is the man's attempt to hide the fact that he's really a man wearing women's clothes. Maybe in the '70s it was funny enough to see a man doing this, but 32 years later, it's crap. Also has a bizarre ending
Sketch 5 (What is a sexual perversion?) = B-. Game show about fetishes is a funny idea, but like some of the other sketches, it runs a little flatly. Still, contestants guessing whether or not a man's perversion is rape or child molestation is good stuff. Extremely tasteless, I guess, but if you're a prude, you wouldn't come near this film anyway. Wacky cameo by an amazingly young-looking Regis Philbin
Sketch 6 (Is the work of sexual researchers accurate?) = B+. Clever tale likening studies of sex to the work of Frankenstein; a gem thanks to the doctor's several insane experiments (to an unsuspecting young woman: "This is a room full of boy scouts. I want to measure your respiration when they gang bang you!"), not to mention the unexpected tangent the sketch takes with the "gigantic tit"
Sketch 7 (What happens during ejaculation?) = B+. Sperm are like the mobile infantry, waiting nervously to be dispatched into "battle". Scores of laborers toil to crank forth an erection. Pretty inventive
It'd be nice, though, if there were some kind of wraparound narrative/joke, because the movie begins and ends rather abrupts, and most of the sketches end inconclusively, usually without even a final punchline
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jeff_v [ 6.0 ]
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This sketch comedy from Woody Allen doesn't hold up as well as Monty Python. Compare this movie to The Meaning of Life. Which is funnier? More transgressive? Which puts sperm to better comedic use?
The Gene Wilder-sheep sketch is definitely the best. It has a "How far will he take this thing?" quality to it that the other sketches, which are dead on arrival, don't have. (The other really funny bit is the hair gel commercial.)
[side note: It's creepy going back through these old Woody Allen movies and noting how often he cracks jokes about underage sex or child molestation.]
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| Weighted Rating | : 6.6 |
| No. Ratings | : 19 | |
| No. Reviews | : 8 | |
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