PRIVATE PARTS
1/2
Rebecca Wan
Produced by: Northern Lights Entertainment / Paramount Pictures / Rysher Entertainment
Directed by: Betty Thomas
Script: Len Blum and Michael Kalesniko
Book: Howard Stern (Private Parts)
Main Cast: Howard Stern (Himself), Robin Quivers (Herself), Mary McCormack (Alison Stern), Fred Norris, Paul Giamatti (Kenny), Gary Dell'Abate (Himself), Jackie Martling (Himself)
Rated: R (A)
Length: 109 min
Rating : ***1/2 out of *****
Stern on the Web: The King of the Media web site; The Official Private Parts web site.
RADIO DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN... NOT
Howard Stern is, apparently, some kind of cultural phenomenon on the American scene -- an insanely popular disc jockey whose daily radio talk shows include interviews with hookers and bisexuals on the finer points of lesbian sex.
PRIVATE PARTS, however, despite being Stern's autobiographical film debut, is a lighthearted (dare I say quirky?) introduction to a man who, if we believe him, has been misunderstood all his life. Touting good-natured, shaggy-haired schlemiel-dom, the result of (what else?) an undersized penis and an oversized schnoze, Stern-on-film is somewhat underwhelming -- sweetly anti-heroic, sensitive, and acceptably controversial in an afternoon-matinee-expose kind of way.
Based on his hugely successful 1993 autobiography-editorial publication of the same name, PRIVATE PARTS runs Stern's conspiratorial confessions over select, dramatized episodes of his life. Beginning with the hugely unsuccessful stage debut of Fartman, a self-created character, Stern tells us in voice-overs that all he ever does is try to be funny, but everybody ends up calling him a moron. As a child his father's favourite sport was yelling at him, but when he witnesses his father's iron strength in an a verted live-radio crisis, he experiences his first epiphany and realizes that he wants to be in the entertainment business.
Stern's life visualizes in a series of very funny anecdotes that play on the sex-obsessed-but-funny-dork persona: at twelve he gives a puppet show for senior citizens and delivers a semi-pornographic scene to liven things up. It works, but his puppets are taken away. At Berkeley, where he does a communications degree, even blind chicks blow him off. Alison (Mary McCormack), whom he convinces to star in his deliciously sent-up student film, is the only woman who *doesn't* diss him and actually goes on to b ecome his wife.
For those who watch from without, however, PRIVATE PARTS should be
most intriguing for its charting of Stern's enigmatic rise to stardom. We see Stern in his early days, a klutzy, eerily cheerful dee-jay, moving from one radio station to another until he realizes that he's most successful when he's "being myself" and not "holding back," insight that he can thank his wife for.
Yes, then there's Alison Stern, well-played by Mary McCormack (Justine Appleton in TV's "Murder One"), who by all accounts sounds like the most forgiving, or else the most sado-masochistic, woman in America. "I wish there were more parts of our life that were just ours," she says to the camera at one point, but like the rest of its not-so-private parts, the film never goes any further than that.
Director Betty Thomas, whose last biographical flick was HBO's The Late Show, does a good job of keeping the pace up, delivering the on-air orgasm and the stripper-in-studio scenes with great panache. Unfortunately, I left the theatre wondering why so ma ny questions were left unanswered. At the end of the film, when even those generally unschooled in the public assholicism of Howard Stern are sufficiently initiated, what lies behind the obnoxious frankness of Howard Stern? Why does Stern, a man in his fo rties with what appears to be an adoring family, do the things he does?
While PRIVATE PARTS leaves those questions wide open, it does deliver sound comic ensemble performances from Stern, real-life on-air partner Robin Quivers, and other members of the team like Fred Norris and Gary Martling. Quivers is especially good, as is Paul Giamatti, who plays Stern's tightass boss as WNBC.
So it wasn't a psychological exploration of the Stern psyche, so it left out 12 years of the man's life (the film ends its narrative in 1985). PRIVATE PARTS is essentially still very enjoyable and worth all of its $7 price ticket.
The Flying Inkpot Rating System:
* Wait for the TV2 broadcast.
** A little creaky, but still better than staying at home with Gotcha!
*** Pretty good, bring a friend.
**** Amazing, potent stuff.
***** Perfection. See it twice.
Rebecca Wan is a girl.
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From: Wayne ()
just reading your PRIVATE PARTS review... erm... is Howard Stern's wife masochistic or sadomasochistic... since sticking it out with Howard means torturing herself, i think it's the former... sorry stupid comment huh? And by the way, where is Berkelee? it's not Berkeley is it? coz it doesn't look familiar and I'm studying in Berkeley... right now anyway. And hey, you made a boo boo... Betty Thomas the director, you called her Betty White in the middle of your review... isn't betty white the Rose character on Golden Girls (thank you for being a friend, travel down the road and back again... blah blah blah?). Okay sorry, just wondering. till then
