Orgazmo
USA 1997
Reviewed by Mark Sinker
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Joe Young, a Mormon actor just arrived in Hollywood, stumbles on a porno film shoot. Set upon by director Maxxx Orbison's security goons, he impresses Orbison with his martial-arts skills, inadvertently winning the part of Captain Orgazmo, a superhero armed with the Orgazmerator, a ray gun that causes orgasms, who rescues hapless women from unwanted sex with porno villains. Joe is scrupulously religious but needs the money for his forthcoming marriage - he makes Orbison promise that penetration will always be taken care of by a "stunt cock".
Joe meets science graduate Ben Chapleski, who plays his faithful sidekick Choda Boy on screen and has invented a real-life Orgazmerator. After filming, Joe, Ben and two porno starlets visit a karaoke bar whose owner is being coerced by mobsters to pay protection money. Dressed as Orgazmo and Choda Boy, Joe and Ben assault the mobsters. Captain Orgazmo becomes the most successful film of all time and a sequel is required. Joe's fiancée Lisa comes to Hollywood, and discovers the nature of Joe's work. He promises to give it all up, but the mobsters (headed by Orbison) kidnap Lisa to force him to continue. Joe and Ben become Orgazmo and Choda Boy once again, rescuing Lisa and defeating Orbison.
Review
As a light-hearted spoof on the video-porn industry, martial-arts movies and superhero culture, Orgazmo is patchy, clumsy and almost unwatchable. Laughs are few and feebly silly at best; as satire, its bite is as non-existent as the acting. When the movie was awarded an adults-only NC-17 rating in the US, its makers orchestrated a fan-driven shout of internet complaint; they knew it to be bland enough for kids to view, the most explicit content being the rubbery dildos making up Choda Boy's uniform. Orgazmo has languished for a year or so, its marketability emerging only in the wake of first-time director Trey Parker's subsequent hit, the cult animated series South Park. The only interest to be derived here is archaeological. How could Parker have moved so swiftly from big-screen uselessness to wicked cartoon greatness (in a new Golden Age of small-screen animation, no less)? Are there any clues to future talent to be found here?
Not many. South Park's unmistakable fridge-magnet-alphabet colour scheme has its precursor in Maxxx Orbison's vivid set-dressing (but Gregg Araki's Nowhere takes a similar stylistic device into genuinely subversive delirium). In keeping with its theme - world-historical mayhem unleashed in Midwestern television-obsessed nowhere - South Park makes smart use of guest-star voices: Isaac Hayes as Chef, George Clooney barking as Sparky the gay dog, "the chick from Species" (Natasha Henstridge) as the substitute teacher bundled into a rocket by terrorists and shot into the centre of the sun. By comparison, Orgazmo's wooden, in-joke cameos from the barely known porn stars Ron Jeremy and Chasey Lain merely prove that whatever quasi-stellar body magic these names are supposed to carry dissolves with Parker directing them. And how is merely employing the people bearing these names clever or funny, on its own?
That said, there is one moment of grim daring in Orgazmo, which if it doesn't touch the many outrageous coups in South Park, at least touches something. It features that minor staple of the fetish-porn industry, an overweight woman engaged in sex. The character is called T-Rex (ho ho); the credits list the actress as "The Fat Lady Stripper", her over-dubbed voice a primitive version of Cartman's whine in South Park; the sex, as Orgazmo shows it, is jumping up and down on a bed. But it half-deliberately connects with a reality of freak-show exploitation and its semi-taboo presence in the continuum of human desire, and the sadness and cruelty involved in such exploitation, including when it's being mocked, as here. The intended comedy comes in the cutaways, to Joe's pop-eyed look of terror. If most aspects of the movie so far have been extremely shaky, Joe himself is a reasonably effective Mormon hero as likable stupe. In such an excessive, deliberately ugly scene, his one-note hick innocence is now revealed as manipulation - this is a hero played by the film's director, after all - and viewers are briefly flipped into unexpectedly edgy, uncontrolled territory, with no guide as to appropriate response. If it's laughter, who exactly would we be laughing at?
The central characters in South Park's otherwise adult shenanigans are innocents also, appalled eight-year-olds in a fallen world. But where in the cartoon this device enables a barrage of breathtaking taboo-busting, Orgazmo wastes its moment, and flops smugly back into nudge-and-wink nothingness. Save your money doing nothing or have a night in with Kenny.
Credits
- Producers
- Fran Rubel Kuzui
- Jason McHugh
- Matt Stone
- Screenplay
- Trey Parker
- Director of Photography
- Kenny Gioseffi
- Editors
- Trey Parker
- Michael R. Miller
- Production Designer
- Tristan Paris Bourne
- Music/ Music Producer/Recorder
- Paul Robb
- ©none
- Production Companies
- Kuzui Enterprises and MDP Worldwide present an Avenging Conscience production
- Executive Producers
- Mark Damon
- Kaz Kuzui
- Noriaki Nakagawa
- Co-Executive Producer
- Jacobus Rose
- Associate Producers
- Farrell Timlake
- Anthony Mindel
- Kuzui Production Executive
- Laurie Fisher
- Production Co-ordinator
- Carrie La
- Unit Production Manager
- Jim Lotfi
- Location Manager
- Kai Ephron
- Executive in Charge of Post-production, MDP
- Mark L. Mitchell
- Post-production Supervisor
- Aryana Farshad
- 2nd Unit Director
- Philip Tan
- Assistant Director
- Keith L. Shaw
- Joseph Moore
- Leslie L. Spann
- Script Supervisor
- Angi Glenn
- Casting
- Katy Wallin
- T. Edwin Klohn
- Local:
- Katy & Company
- Special Effects
- Co-ordinator:
- Gregory Landerer
- Foreman:
- Lee McConnell
- Associate Editor
- Carter Dehaven IV
- Set Decorator
- Mandana Yamin
- Costume Designer
- Kristen Anacker
- Costume Supervisor
- Kristen Held
- Make-up/Hair
- Gyongyi Wilkins
- Karen Sherer
- Prosthetic Mask
- Kevin Brennan
- Main Titles Artist
- Chris Stiles
- Main Titles Colorist
- Derek Gonzalez
- Titles/Opticals
- Cinema Research Corporation
- Music Supervisor
- Christopher Violette
- Executive Music Producers
- John King
- Michael Simpson
- Mitchell Frank
- Music Editors
- Ross Levinson
- Johnny Caruso
- Soundtrack
- "Disintegrator" by Ronald Keys Jr, performed by DJ Swamp; "More" by Ken Jordan, Scott Kirkland, performed by The Crystal Method; "Try Your Luck, Time" by Michael Simpson, John King, performed by The Dust Brothers featuring MDC; "Work the Angles" by Rakaa Taylor, Michael Perretta, K. Matlin, S. Gordy, performed by Dilated Peoples; "C.R.E.A.M." by Clifford Smith, Corey Woods, Dennis Coles, Gary Grice, Jason Hunter, Lamont Hawkins, Robert Diggs, Russell Jones, Isaac Hayes, David Porter, performed by The Wu-Tang Clan; "A Sign from God" by Robert Smith, Reeves Gabrels, performed by Cogasm; "Sorry About Your Penis" by Steven Scott Harwell, Gregory D. Camp, Paul Gerald Delisle, Kevin John Iannello, performed by Smashmouth; "Twisted Steel/Leather Donut" by Taylor Stacy, Ryan Kirk, Chris Fudurich, Bobby Hecksher, Sean Furlong, performed by Head Set; "Mi verga" by Trey Parker, Matt Stone, performed by Mariachi Los Zapiros; "Love" by/performed by Ween; "Now You're a Man" by Trey Parker, performed by DVDA; "Funk Pig" by Michael Simpson, John King, performed by The Dust Brothers; "Hamster Style" performed by The Dust Brothers; "A Knife and a Fork", "Hack 2" by Paul Robb, performed by Think Tank; "Gonna Kick Yer Ass" by/performed by DVDA; "Red Glass (Akai Glass)" by Makino Shoichi, Kadoi Hachiro, performed by Masao 'Maki' San, Ai George, Shima Chinami; "Oh My Darling Clementine" by Henrik Nielsen
- Sound Design
- Frank Serafine
- Executive Audio Supervisor
- Jeff Wannberg
- Executive Co-ordinator
- Timothy Bindel
- Re-mix Audio Supervision
- John A. Levy
- Stage Recordist
- Nick Marshall
- Production Sound Mixer
- Jon Ailetcher
- Re-recording Mixers
- Bill Jackson
- Thomas Caufield
- Stan Kastner
- Ezra Dweck
- Dialogue Editors
- Denise Brady
- Harry Harris
- Sound Effects Editors
- Thomas Caufield
- Phillip Kovats
- ADR
- Recordist:
- Thomas Caufield
- Editorial:
- Frank Nolan
- Foley
- Artist:
- John Post
- Recordist:
- Thomas Caufield
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Philip Tan
- Fight Choreographer
- Troy McCaskell
- Animal Handler
- Brian McMillan
- Cast
- Trey Parker
- Elder Joe Young
- Dian Bachar
- Ben Chapleski, 'Choda Boy'
- Robyn Lynne
- Lisa, Joe's fiancée
- Michael Dean Jacobs
- Maxxx Orbison
- Ron Jeremy
- Clark, 'Jizzmaster Zero'
- Andrew W. Kemler
- Rodgers
- David Dunn
- A-Cup, 'Neutered Man'
- Matt Stone
- Dave the lighting guy
- Toddy Walters
- Georgi
- Chasey Lain
- Candi
- Juli Ashton
- Saffi
- Masao 'Maki' San
- G-Fresh, sushi bar owner
- Joseph Arsenault
- Jimmy the Fish
- Jeff Schubert
- Tommy the Shark
- Desi Singh
- Randy the Guppy
- Stan Sawicki
- Robert White
- Jacobus Rose
- homeowner
- Susan Timlake
- housewife
- Louise Rapport
- old lady
- Ken Merckx
- Suzinski, original Orgazmo
- Kristen Anacker
- costumer
- Buff Grey
- Bilbo, security guard
- Cathy Fitzpatrick
- older porn actress
- Marcus Vaughn
- white stunt cock
- Joseph Moore
- Ted, black stunt cock
- Anna Kazuki
- Nasuko, 'Ass-Fuck Twin'
- Eve
- Haruko, 'Ass-Fuck Twin'
- Jeffrey Bowman
- porn actor
- The Fat Lady Stripper
- T-Rex
- Shalya Laveaux
- Greek porno actress
- John Marlo
- Sancho
- Farrell Timlake
- Tony Mindel
- Jason McHugh
- porno film crew
- Jerald A. Greenfield
- Ron Hall
- 2nd film crew
- Jamshid
- Ben's father
- Robert Lansing
- young Ben
- T. Edwin Klohn
- video clerk
- Stanley L. Kaufman
- doctor
- Jill Kelly
- nurse
- James Pierre Comete
- young boy
- Erin Alain
- Liane Adamo
- orgazmo women
- Liane Adamo
- orgazmo old lady
- Horrac Vandegelden
- cop
- Eric Stough
- arrestee
- Miyu Natsuki
- Mao Yamada
- G-Fresh's daughters
- Stephen Monas
- karaoke
- Max Hardcore
- Kristy Lake
- Jeanna Fine
- Davia Ardell
- Jacklyn Lick
- Ruby Diamond
- Melissa Hill
- Serenity
- Melissa Monet
- Peter Romero
- Warren Northwood
- Boraca The Brazilian Bombshell
- Certificate
- 18
- Distributor
- First Independent Films Ltd
- 8,498 feet
- 94 minutes 25 seconds
- Dolby SR
- Colour by
- Fotokem