Rock Slyde

"A laugh-out-loud send-up of Hollywood...and the film noir detective genre, "Rock Slyde" starts with what many big Hollywood films lack — a really good and very funny script.

Patrick Warburton as Rock Slyde, a cognitively clueless detective whose nose for crime is better than his noggin, was sad eyed, pitch perfect and endearing. Resisting the advances of femme fatale Rena Sofer's delicious Sara Lee because of a childhood spent watching "Soul Train" (but that's another story), Slyde faces down adversary cult leader Andy Dick (Bart of Bartology) to save his holdout office space in the ever-expanding Bartology building and rescue his brainwashed secretary. And if you think that sentence is pointedly pithy, "Slyde" is even more crammed full with over-the-top winks, asides and jokes including a cameo by Jason Alexander as a Jewish U.S. postal carrier enamored of Slyde's turn as an actor in a gay porn musical (but that too is another story).

"Rock Slyde" performances, cinematography, original score and songs (if you don't leave the theater singing, "swashbuckle me, swashbuckle, down on your knees," you're probably dead), and script are brilliant and of a piece — a carefully crafted piece that is a testament to creativity on the cheap — brilliance without big budgets. "

• Idyllwild Town Crier