Services like Netflix and YouTube have made the most recent films readily available to anyone. Can we find anything of value in the muck of b-movies, ambitious failures and exploitative crap-fests? We’re going to find out in Dispatches from Instant View Purgatory.
What’re we watching: “I Melt With You,” a 2011 “drama” about a bunch of enormous douchebags played by actors I sort of like.
What does it look like: You know that kid at your high school who had a Led Zeppelin shirt for every day of the week? This is what it would look like if he wrote a movie about Jethro Tull.
What’s going on: Four middle-aged succesful white people with emotional problems (isn’t that rough being loaded and then cheating on your wife?) all go to a vacation home to snort blow, drink excessively, have sex with vaguely symbolic prostitutes and kill themselves.
Why haven’t we heard of this: The director’s biggest movie was ‘The Mothman Prophecies” and its biggest star is Rob Lowe. And he’s terrible in it.
What works: Sasha Grey is a cute girl. I was also briefly reminded of why I liked Jeremy Piven during his run on The Larry Sanders Show.
What doesn’t: Where do I start? This is the worst kind of feel-sorry for yourself, mid-life crisis movie, filled with rich people wondering why their lives are so empty. It’s pretty much a worse version of “Overboard” but with Thomas Jane hanging himself instead of Goldie Hawn being obnoxious.
Skip to: At one point early on in the film, Jane hires a pair of prostitutes to play the roles of his former lovers. It’s ridiculously creepy, but somehow it actually is sort of funny when he then kills himself. The ending also is an exercise in ridiculous over-the-top cheese.
The Verdict: “I Melt with You” is at times hilariously bad and at others, incredibly difficult to sit through. This is definitely one to miss.
What’s coming up next: Dispatch from Instant View Purgatory finally comes full circle, going mouth to butt by viewing “The Human Centipede: First Sequence.”
