A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST

Stars: Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Giovanni Ribisi, Sarah Silverman, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried, Neil Patrick Harris, Christopher Hagen and Wes Studi.
Writers: Seth MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild.
Director: Seth MacFarlane.

Rating: 1/5

If there is a contender to wrestle the 2014 Worst Picture Razzie from Adam Sandler and his much maligned non-com Blended, it may well be Seth MacFarlane for his starring debut, A Million Ways to Die in the West. One of the most misguided and flagrantly self-indulgent vanity projects in recent memory, ‘The Man Who Killed The Oscars’ puts his talent front and centre with this crude, witless western spoof that reaches its comedic peak when Doogie Howser kicks over a hat full of diarrhoea. Hooray for Hollywood.

MacFarlane refuses to take a backward step from critics who label his brand of shock-schtick frat-boy level puerile; the very first joke is a misogynistic slur, followed by a steady stream of body fluid gags, some homophobic stereotyping and lots of very modern cussing. His on-camera appearance is itself a non-concession to the conventions of the dustbowl melodrama, with his pearly white teeth, gelled hair and man-scaped features entirely at odds with…well, everything. Which, as was evident from his hosting of the Academy Awards, is the essence of his comic persona; MacFarlane looks the dapper traditionalist, but only to the extent that it allows him to infiltrate the establishment  and amuse himself by setting light to a bag of poo on their doorstep. A Million Ways to Die in the West represents his latest bag of poo.  

The widescreen lensing of DOP Michael Barrett captures the landscape imagery associated the genre, yet MacFarlane does very little to engage on a comedic level with the setting. In one seemingly endless rant that feels pilfered from an outdated stand-up routine, the shrieking actor rattles off all the negatives of the frontier life in 1880’s Arizona; surely some of these could have been explored in greater depth had the script been less reliant upon the auteur’s bottomless well of faecal references.

MacFarlane plays sheep grazier Albert, a whining nobody who loses his girlfriend Louise (Amanda Seyfried) when she tires of his general unmanliness. Albert finds a (very) patient ear in his virginal best friend Edward (Giovanni Ribisi) and his lovable Christian-whore Ruth (Sarah Silverman), but Albert is near the end of his tether. Things begin to brighten up when Albert saves the beautiful Anna (Charlize Theron)during a bar brawl and an entirely unfathomable romance blossoms, until it is revealed she is scouting the town for her gunslinging bad-guy hubby, Clinch (Liam Neeson, looking nonplussed). On the periphery is moustachioed creep, Foy (the film’s biggest asset, Neil Patrick Harris), who is wooing Louise and remains at odds with our anti-hero.

The solid cast is shunted aside for long passages, allowing MacFarlane underserved centre stage for most of the film’s inexcusable 116 minute running time. Deft comedians like Ribisi and Silverman are left floundering with weak, obvious gags before disappearing entirely; Seyfried’s career takes a backward step in a role that feels brutally truncated, as if the majority of it will bulk up the DVD extras package. The most awkward player is clearly Oscar-winner Theron, who good-sports herself for the benefit of her co-star’s project but is clearly uncomfortable. Broad comedy is not prevalent on the actress’ resume and her casting seems less to do with her comedic skill (despite her natural likability onscreen) and more to do with MacFarlane’s over-seer role; if given the power of veto as writer/director/producer on your first studio pic starring role, why not cast the world’s most beautiful actress, regardless of her suitability, as your love interest?

MacFarlane falls back on his well-worn trick of abstract pop-culture references, the likes of which sometimes worked in his overvalued TV series, Family Guy; the IMDb credit list spoils the surprise factor for fans of Christopher Lloyd, Gilbert Gottfried and Ewan McGregor, but there are some other A-list cameos, all affording the overall production no particularly advantage. Some druggy humour and shock-effect gore is employed, the likes of which may raise a goofy smirk amongst stoners, but the scenes are so devoid of inventiveness or context as to have no impact.

The failure of A Million Ways to Die in the West falls entirely at the feet of Seth MacFarlane and one hopes he wears the blame with the same enthusiasm with which he accepted the accolades for his surprise 2012 hit, Ted. In hindsight, the strength of that film was not the foul-mouthed CGI bear but the warm point-of-entry that its star Mark Wahlberg provided. MacFarlane’s follow-up lacks any connective tissue to human realness, preferring cartoonish coarseness and random excess; it is as if that twisted, needy sociopathic soft-toy was given a one-picture deal as reward for his success, and this is the end result.

3D NAKED AMBITION

Stars: Chapman To, Josie Ho, Candy Yuen, Yui Tatsumi, Aoi Tsukasa, Louis Koo, Nozomi Aso, Anri Okita, Maiko Yuki, Derek Tsang and Tyson Chak.
Writers: Chan Hing-ka, Ho Miu-ki and Chou Man-you.
Director: Lee Kung-lok.

Rating: 3/5

There is certainly enough curvy, nubile flesh to have mainland Chinese censors reeling but in every other regard, director Lee Kung-lok’s enjoyably silly Naked Ambition offers only minor titillation. It’s strengths, however minor, are in maintaining a giddy comedic air despite a plot as flimsy as lingerie; any controversy conjured by the puritanical brigade should prove a storm in a D-cup.

A sequel-of-sorts to Dante Lam’s more seriously-minded 2003 hit, Lee’s high-energy romp is ostensibly a vehicle for ageless comic Chapman To, cutting a dashing figure as Wyman Chan, the Hong Kong everyman who inadvertently becomes an AV (adult video) superstar in the lucrative Japanese market.

Part of a friendship clique who bemoan the dwindling quality and profitability of DVD porn, the group head for Tokyo to hook-up with their adult industry connection, go-between Shidaiko Hatoyama (a foul-mouthed and funny Josie Ho, returning to the franchise in which she made her screen debut over a decade ago). Here, they set about making their own skinflick, only to offend the leading man with their demands on the first day of shooting and leaving the production with no good wood to film their opus.

Stepping up when no one else has the…well, you know, Chan allows his female lead (real-life AV goddess, Yui Tatsumi) to dominate – an unwillingness that pays off when Japanese women warm to his ‘shy guy’, submissive man persona and turn him into a top-selling AV industry superstar (after a very funny 'training' montage with Tako Kato, an AV legend with over 5000 credits). To's ‘reluctant Romeo’ archetype has always been popular with audiences – Australian readers will recall the bawdy Alvin Purple misadventures of the 70’s; British audiences had Confessions of a Window Cleaner (1974) and its sequels.

Lee’s film settles into a series of set-ups capturing on-set wackiness and featuring topless girls giggling a lot and bouncing up and down on top of the increasingly smug and smarmy Chan (a persona that will be pleasingly familiar to longtime fans of To, who played a similar character most recently in Ho-cheung Pang’s Vulgaria). Fans of Eastern erotica will find an extra giggle or two in the soft-core depiction of cultural references such as the mega-monster genre, pink-haired Harajuku nymphettes and crowded train-carriage fantasy. 

That is about it plotwise, until studly upstart Naoki Nagasaki (Louis Koo, another 2003 alumni) challenges him to a nationally broadcast ‘sex-athon’ to see who is indeed the AV alpha male. It is all preposterous, of course, as befits a film set in the ludicrous world of garish pop-porn, but it is played with a spritely energy by a cast that seems to be having a good time (in one scene, a stand-by woodsman accidentally ‘sprays’ To’s character, a splash to the temple for which the actor was clearly not prepared and which sends him out of frame, giggling).

If anything leaves a bad taste in the mouth, it might be the thinly veiled line in racial humour that creeps through the script by co-writers Chan Hing-ka, Ho Miu-ki and Chou Man-you. The Hong Kong ensemble utter several observations at the expense of their Japanese hosts, at one juncture ranting about their superiority over the local population. It reveals a mean-spirited streak that is out of place in such lightweight fare.

As expected, the third-dimension is predominantly used to assault the audience with close-ups of large breasts and provide extra-sensory immersion within the bedroom scenes. The Lumiere Brothers must be rolling in their graves, although Russ Meyer would love the new technology.