Leslie Bibb, Justin Long and Jason Sudeikis star in “Movie 43.” (Jessica Miglio)
I can almost understand why Relativity Media, the studio behind “Movie 43,” declined to screen the film for critics. Almost.
Because the comedy, a raunch-fest of 12 interconnected shorts starring such A-listers as Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman, is actually quite funny. (Since it opens today, I bought a ticket for a 10 a.m. showing, watching it over my second cup of coffee with one other guy in an otherwise empty theater. We both laughed heartily.) Read my full review, and consider yourself warned.
• “Movie 43″: A near masterpiece of tastelessness
Don’t get me wrong. The movie (which even its own promotional material advertises as “not for the weak-stomached, faint of heart or easily offended”) is about as tasteless as anything I’ve ever seen. And I’m not usually not a fan of gratuitous gross-out humor.
But there’s something so extreme, so egregious and so boundary-busting about the film that it punched a hole in the wall separating my schoolmarmish superego from my snot-nosed id. It doesn’t go over the top so much as it goes straight through the concrete floor of human decency, like a nuclear core meltdown. Where it comes out on the other side is some place both terrible and, perversely, wonderful.
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