Underground Comedy Movie
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| Underground Comedy Movie | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Vince Offer |
| Produced by | Maria Levin Jeff Jaeger Mark Shlomi |
| Written by | Vince Offer Dante |
| Starring | Vince Offer Slash |
| Music by | NOFX Guttermouth |
| Cinematography | Michael Hofstein |
| Editing by | Vince Offer Luis Ruiz |
| Release date(s) | 14 May 1999 |
| Running time | 88 minutes |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $170,000 |
| Gross revenue | $856 |
| Official website | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Underground Comedy Movie was a film directed by Vince Offer and released in 1999, starring the director himself in many of the primary roles. It features music by NOFX and Guttermouth, among others.
The film itself mainly consists of tasteless, lowbrow skits (such as Gena Lee Nolin loudly using the restroom and a superhero named "Dickman", who dresses in a giant penis costume and defeats his enemies by squirting them with semen), created by the director, based on sketches Offer originally performed on a cable access show he had hosted. The film went direct to video and consistently rates in IMDB's bottom 100 movies. Lawrence Van Gelder in The New York Times wrote a scathing review, saying the movie "stands as a monument to ineptitude and self-delusion."[1]
Although the film was released and screened in 1999, Offer was ruined financially by 2002 and home video distribution plans were shelved. Offer (who had previously been a successful vegetable chopper salesman and businessman), resumed selling vegetable choppers at swap meets in order to support himself and raise money to complete his film project.[2] Within a few months, he had earned enough to resume production, and the movie was finally completed, released, and marketed entirely on late-night infomercials which Offer funded with his earnings from the swap meet vegetable chopper sales. The film has sold in excess of 100,000 copies and Offer has used the proceeds from sales to file a lawsuit against the Church of Scientology.[3]
Contents |
[edit] Cast
- Vince Offer
- Slash
- Gena Lee Nolin
- Karen Black
- Angelyne
- Joey Buttafuoco
- Mongo Brownlee
- Rebecca Chaney
- Barbara Snellenburg
- Lightfield Lewis
- Michael Clarke Duncan
[edit] Litigation History
On Sept. 23, 1998, Vince Offer filed a suit against 20th Century Fox and the co-directors of There's Something About Mary, Bobby and Peter Farrelly. Offer claimed that 14 scenes in Mary were lifted from his film. The Farrellys released this statement: We've never heard of him, we've never heard of his movie, and it's all a bunch of baloney.[4]
In 2000, Offer sued Anna Nicole Smith for $4 million. Offer claimed that Smith had agreed to be in his movie, but backed out in 1996 over fears that appearing in the movie would be detrimental to her career.[5]
In 2004, Offer sent out a press release though prnews.com announcing his intention to sue the Church of Scientology. Previously, in 1997, while production was ongoing, the Church of Scientology allegedly began a large-scale smear campaign against Offer and his film (Offer was a Scientologist at the time).[3] The director claimed the Scientologists' "Celebrity Center" in Hollywood labeled him a "criminal" (based on the rules of Scientology) and threatened his Scientology friends in the movie business with "condemnation" punishment that could be lethal to their careers if they did not write malicious reports against Offer. [3]
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ Lawrence Van Gelder. "15 Minutes (Count 'Em) of Infamy", The New York Times, May 28, 1999.
- ^ LOW-RENT RIOT | The Underground Comedy Movie | Movie News | Movies | Entertainment Weekly
- ^ a b c Filmmaker Sues Church of Scientology
- ^ Monitor | Pop Culture News | News + Notes | Entertainment Weekly
- ^ Movie & TV News @ IMDb.com - WENN - 23 October 2000
