What a waste.  Quite literally, in one segment.  That’s why calling Movie 43 a piece of crap is apropos.  If this junk is what movie humor has evolved to, then the future is frightening, both for the format, and for audiences who will be subjected to this crap.

Two things are evident in Movie 43.  The first is that it was written by people with the imaginations of adolescents.  That is not meant as a compliment.  If the sum total of all of the grotesque inferences and references to breasts, butts, penises, testicles and vaginas, including all of the bodily functions of such and sexual proclivities involving such were removed from the movie, it would not last thirty minutes.  Some movies are highbrow, some are lowbrow in terms of their tastefulness.  This one resides in the toilet.

Secondly, the producers did an amazing job of recruiting big-time A-list (and B-list) actors and actresses willing to prostitute and humiliate themselves for this low art. No less than seven current or former Academy Award nominees (and two winners) are among the unfortunate folks who take part in this mess.  And that doesn’t include currently popular stars like Anna Faris, Emma Stone, Richard Gere, Jason Sudaekis, Kristen Bell, Gerard Butler, Elizabeth Banks, Dennis Quaid, Uma Thurman and Josh Duhamel, who also degrade themselves.  It’s a remarkable cast, and it is truly an embarrassment of riches.

Now, all of this would be immaterial if the movie were funny.  Anything can be accepted or forgiven if the end result is worthwhile.  But this muck isn’t funny, it’s repulsive.  A couple of the segments — the movie is a series of ridiculous short segments tied together by a stupid thread involving insane writer-director Dennis Quaid’s idea for a new movie — are simply tasteless, attempting to mine humor from their situations rather than sheer vulgarity.  The Hugh Jackman – Kate Winslet dinner segment and Terrence Howard coaching segment fall into this category.  Yet even these are not funny.  They are, at best, slightly amusing, and probably wouldn’t even see the light of day as “Saturday Night Live” sketches.  The rest of the film is dismal.

I fully realize that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that my taste in humor certainly does not reflect the public at large.  Some viewers may actually feel this crap is actually hilarious; they are welcome to it.  I hated it, and believe that many of the performers, particularly Dennis Quaid, Anna Faris and Chris Pratt, have truly embarrassed themselves.  I’d hate to be one of their parents and have to sit through this garbage.  What a waste.  1/2.  31 January 2013.