I didn't even want to say in the title what the film was called... to me that is appropriate when I saw something called PENIS BOY, and I only watched it as it got a legendarily bad backlash against it on Letterboxd; it was made by someone who is a member of the site and well... read what I said about it below in my Letterboxd review of a short that came out earlier this year:
Or: Watching something from men that must be Meninists is incredibly disturbing, in the worst possible ways.
Or: This short HAD to be a troll job only designed to piss off any decent human being who sees it, right?
Or: Oh My God, this piece of crap actually included the names of Mike Leigh and Alejandro Jodorowsky in the Special Thanks part of the credits... or maybe the latter is someone else entirely, as the name listed is “Alejandro Jordowosky”.
I pretty much never watch shorts unless I rewatch old ones from the likes of The Three Stooges or what have you, and I've decided never to review such things here; it's just a personal choice. However, when the buzz around this film began a few days ago when people started watching it once it was posted on YouTube, I was curious and I had to see it too; note that this “buzz” was of the “amazingly toxic and negative” variety. I mean, it's now to the point of people feeling it's a dare to see this, as if it was A Serbian Film or something... but that's an insult to an actual motion picture with some talent involved like A Serbian Film was. I personally don't have much hope for such things with a juvenile title that was used just for shock value, but I still took the chance and I was curious to see if this was truly as bad as most are saying it is.
It is.
It is quite atrocious; it was so terrible I seriously wonder if the director James Healey (a Letterboxd member who has done some shorts before but I've never seen them so there's no opportunity for me to compare) made this bad on purpose as a meaning of trolling the audience. I don't know why you'd do such a thing, but then again there's no shortage (IMO) of European directors from the past few decades who have made motion pictures designed to enrage and anger the audience and yet most seem to love them... anyhow, Mr. Healey is definitely not even one of those heralded Eurodouche directors by any stretch of the imagination. A common comparison in the reviews I've seen are to Harmony Korine; I've avoided Harmony's films for a reason but everyone has said that he tries to copy him and fails in every way.
In this 17 minute short, we follow an ex call girl who returns to the game for a big payout, and she has a pretty awful night... although not as bad as the story itself-which gets worse and worse as it goes along, and an ending where if you saw James Healey mooning the camera it wouldn't be as much of an insult-or the agonizing experience of actually watching this. It gets off on a bad foot with some random woman delivering a soliloquy and it's patently obvious it was written by a guy who not only hates anyone with a vagina, but knows nothing about anyone who happens to have one. It somehow spirals downhill from there.
We follow a random brunette who is hoping for a few thousand bucks, she rides on the NYC subway, she runs into a Weeaboo, she randomly states out of nowhere that she wishes to kill herself (this means nothing), then we see some REALLY repulsive characters... including the titular Penis Boy, who only appears in the end and is a boy under the age of 18 who says some incredibly vulgar things … which means nothing as everyone says incredibly vulgar things, as the script is full of incredibly vulgar dialogue and it becomes tiresome immediately. There's no story or point to speak of, really. Why was this even made, besides displaying a bunch of characters that only serve to be horrible human beings? I don't even want to talk about the chubby douche who was in an Iron Man suit or someone else who was in a pig suit.
But what I think the worst part of all this is, it has to be the misogyny. It's not just the director but everyone who was involved behind the scenes. They all came off as MRA (Men's Rights Activists) members; I used to laugh at idiots who are so terrified of women (or just hate them for whatever reasons) that they think men now need more rights because of “those damn feminists”. Now, I realize it's not such a humorous thing when people who think similarly or even the same have done horrible things against members of the opposite sex. I am not saying any of these people have perpetrated such acts... but it's all just sad, and the misogyny is as bad as most reviews have said it is.
The acting is not great, there's obvious ADR, and while looks-wise I can't complain, people these days are doing shorts on their new iPhone 6 that look nice too, so that isn't a big selling point in this microbudget world anymore. With all the time and effort I wish everyone involved would have come up with something better than something which fails in every which way, even as an avant garde piece. I also wish that the filmmakers could find other ways to work out their issues with females... or even better, realize that “chicks” aren't the vile evil creatures those clowns think they are.
I realize the joke's on me for actually watching this, but I can take solace in telling everyone who has never heard of this before that this is not worth watching... even as a laugh as it's about as pleasant as ripping out your own toenails with a pair of rusty pliers.
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