Penn and Teller: Bullshit; and "Acts of Betrayal"

Don Imus, and his nerdy, gross, dofous brother, Fred, once did a book of perfectly decent landscape PTHOTGRAPHS. Nope. It was NOT a joke. These were seriously meant lphotographs, if unexiting. However, Don and Fred Imus totally UNDERMINED the idea of anyone taking their photographs seriously--in what I regard as perhaps the ultimate attempt to HYPE sales of a book with an indefesnible gimmick. No, I did NOT buy the book--not being a total idiot--but I did browse through the (thin) volume at Barnes and Noblle.


If you have any knowledge of Don Imus, you KNOW what he did to hype sales of a book very few would otherwise buy. Basically, with every photograph you got a caption/commenttray using the F--- word ("fuck", for the single church gig grandmother out there who has never encountered the word, and I am not sure about her). Did this add ANLYTHING to the photgrpahs? Not a chance. The comentary was NOT "funny". It was merely meant to "shock", and satisfy Imsu fans that they were getting something "hip" and "adult" Of course, it merely proved that Dno and Fred Imus are JUVENILE, immature and shallow--and left being "hip" decades ago.


I just saw Penn and Teller's Showtime prgram for the first tie (since I don't usually get Showtime). Let me asy that I like the irreverence of Penn and Teller, just as I used to like Imus' radio program (if not consistently), where he was froced NOT to use the F--- word by FCC rules.


But what Penn and Teller have done with "Bullshit" is to take "Mythbusters", and try to make it "hip" and "adut" by having Penn use the F--- word about every other sentence. Does this ADD anything? Nope. As with the Imus photographs, it only SUBTRACTS from any real point t the program. It is juvenile and silly, and UNDERMINES the program.


The show I saw debunked astrology, as I have done in this blog. Yar are a kook if you believe in astrology, or use it to make ANY serious decision. The charlatans who practice astrology "seriously" can do major damage to lpeople who pay attention to their "readings". Penn and Teller (who, of course, never talks) ridiculed astrology effectively ,EXCEPT for throwing in the F--- word every other sentence. Then there was the gratuitous exposure of two breasts at the end of the lprogram. WHY is it that original cable programs feel COMPELLED to scream out: "SEE, we are on CABLE< and we can be ADULT." It merely proves they are not adult. If you think the mere use of the F--- word is eithr funny or shocking, I am sorry for you. Rating for TV show: 59.


I only give it that high a rating because Peen and Teller were dead on in the substance of their program, if only they did not mess it up trying to be "hip" and "adult". Peen even quotes James Randi (The Amazing Randi"), who is one of my favorite people of all time. He has debunked--totally successfully--pseudo-science and "paranormal" "abilities" of all kinds for decades. He exposed Uri Geller as a total fraud. You are a kook if you put Uri Geller on your program as an expert on the MIND. Ype., Doug Stephan: YOU ARE A KOOK--one of the stupidest kooks it has ever been my misfortune to encounter on the radio.


Penn and Teller are too intelligent for this Imus-style pandering. Too bad. I know. The "concept" probably sold the program. Did I say that cable executives were less than juvenile and stupid? I certainly didn't mean to suggest that they were anything else. Showtime, this means YOU (and HBO, and all of "adult" cable--Hell, all of CABLE, whether "adult" or "news" or whatever). I am talking about the "original" programming. The old movies on TCM are great, so long as you avoid the TCM leftist social commentary and "original" programming (sows on feminism, race, and similar things, as they were portrayed in the movies).


"Acts of Betrayal" may be the best movie Maria Conchita Alonso ever made (rating 76). I MUST be forgetting some really good movie she made. but mostly she was in pretty bad ones. Why is this "review" in this entry on Penn and Teller? It is here because Maria Conchita Alonso,. in "Acts of Betrayal", made Penn (in "Bullshit") look like a choir boy. From the beginning of the movie until the end, she carried on a non-stop monologue consisting of the foulest languate you have ever heard. She could not open her mouth without the F--- word being the least of the foul words and images she assaulted the world (and the FBI agent trying to protect her) with. Her language was much worse than that to the mall cp in "Observe and Report" (rating 1--that is ONE out of 100). But "Acts of Betrayal" was a very entertainging movie (so long as the language does not put you off). In vact, "Acts of Betrayal" is the ONLY movie I have ever seen where use of the F---- word, and foul language, had a real PURPOSE. In fact, every stand up comedian I have ever seen in a comic club has failed this test: NO purpose to their (compulsory?) use of the F--- word as an Imus-type filler. Whether funny or not funny, I have never seen the F--- word itself provide humor to a comic act. I gess it COULD, if there were a purpose (like in "Acts of Betrayal"), but there never is any purpose.


What is the prupose of the foul language in "Acts of Betrayal"? Well, you know the plot of "Acts of Betrayal". You have seen it many times before. There is this FBI agent assigned to protect this witness against a high placed criminal from the forces out to kill her. What makes the movie is the contrast between the totally anal, straight arrow FBI man and the totally profane, if beautiful, Maria Conchita Alonso. It is funny (funnier than Penn's use of the same language, and than all of those comics trying to be "hip" and "adult"). Further, in its B-movie way, it was somewhat profound. Is language the true test of right and wrong--the true test of character? Obviously, it is not. But you do NOT get that message from "Bullshit". You DO get that message from "Acts of Betrayal", which also conveys the message that merely because a person has a "straight arrow" moral code does not necessarily mean a lack of "worldliness" becaue of senseless internal repression. It is the TENSION between different points of view that matters, and makes "Acts of Betrayl" a pretty good movie.


Too bad the use of the F--- word so rarely has any purpose. There was a time (a LONG time ago) when it had a limited "shock" value. It no longer even has that. "Cather in the Rye" (J.D. Salinger), and a few others: you can count on one hand--two at most--the books and movies that use foul language to a purpose.


What about "realism"? Yes, I was in the army, and a movie about miliatary personnel that does not include foul language is not "realistic". So what. People scrach themselves. People pick their nose. The problem with this kind of "realism" is that it DISTRACTS from the real point. "From Here to Eternity": Would it really be a better movie with the F--- word every other sentence? I don't think so. Oh, I don't mind this sort of "realism", where the language is not totatlly gratuitous. I just don't think it is essential to much of anything. "Realism" certainly does not justify the gratuitous, distracting use of the F--- word in Bullshit, or in the Imus book of photographs (or by all of that myriad of comics who all seem to have learned from Eddie Murphy).


The language in "Acts of Betrayal" had a purpose. Mostly, such language has no purpose (including when we use it in our daily lives). You could just as effectively use "bleeping", or "fricking"--or ANY arbitrary word. P.G. Wodehouse made this point in at least one of his stories, many decades ago.


"Bullshit" is not much worth seeing, despite the manifest intelligence of Penn and Teller.