Joe's Apartment

We happened to notice this on the TV in the video store one evening, and decided we had to have it. Unfortunately for the poor shop assistant, she was in the middle of watching it and had to take it out of the VCR to rent it to us.

Turned out to be a great choice, even though I hate cockroaches! A marvelously silly, feel-good film. Yes, of course it has a standard plot-by-numbers plot-line, but it's rare to find a film that doesn't these days.

What's even better is that the shops think it is a bad film, so the DVD is very cheap. Go out and buy one!

This movie was blasted by every critic in the media, but I think they were all way off base. Was there anything plausible about it? No. Was there anything funny about it? YES! I never got a chance to see it in the theatre, but when I rented it on VHS, I couldn't stop laughing. Of course, I saw it alone at the time, so I thought that perhaps there was something wrong with me. Then my brother rented it, and the rest of my family saw it, and we all laughed, and I realized something I should've known earlier, that this was funny, and I shouldn't be ashamed to think that way...and neither should YOU!

I had never heard of this movie before my 16 year-old son rented the video. It is hilarious. Think of "Babe" as produced by the Marx Brothers, using singing cockroaches instead of mice . Evidently the critics didn't like it much, and I can see how they might not see it as high art, but as entertainment and an enjoyable time in fantasy land, it right up there with the best of them, in my opinion.

I was quite surprised when I saw the mark given by the IMDb users to this film. Indeed, even though it's not the best movie of the century, I found it quite entertaining and "fresh".

I loved the way it is shot, there is a real work on the layouts that makes Joe's apartment look dirty and moving at the same time. Besides, the visual effects are well done for a film that dates back to 1996. They are not THAT impressive but they are very efficient to create the funny atmosphere. I could not describe the way I laughed rolling on the floor when I saw those roaches watching an "insect porn movie", it cracked me up.

This movie is worth seeing for sure and does not deserve such a mark. Everyone who's curious should watch it to make his/her own opinion and should not pay attention to the five miserable stars given to the film.

Just remember, this is a critic who holds some of the most vile films ever (vile in a good way) in my list of best comedies ever (Dumb and Dumber, UHF, South Park), so it is not surprising that I found this movie enjoyable and funny. The movie stars Jerry O'Connell as a loser type who finds an apartment in NY's east side for 50 or 60 bucks, but then he also finds it is infested with more cockroaches than the DMV has idiots. I'm sure there will be some watching the movie who might think, this might be a good time to become bulemic, and for those people I don't reccomend the movie for the hurl factor. But for those who can take the chum of roaches on a face, in breasts, in toilets singing songs (I love the funky towel song), this movie is for you. By the way, this is the first MTV movie, so it shows that at first MTV might've had a good streak. Looks like execs can't take urinal cake jokes though. A