D_Burke
Joined Jul 2005
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"Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa" is a TV special that is so bad, there is absolutely nothing redeeming about it. Every single thing about this special, from the inexcusably half-baked animation to the meandering and unfocused story to the awkward and clumsy dialogue, makes absolutely no sense.
If this film was made by a first semester animation student as a final project, it would be serviceable and might deserve a passing grade. After all, animators have to start somewhere.
However, it wasn't one person who made this film. Several adults worked on it, and someone at the WB! Network in 2002 apparently thought it was good enough to air in prime time with potentially millions of Americans being able to see it. Either that, or a disgruntled WB! employee wanted to get themselves fired.
Why did this special air on American television even once? Who wrote it? Why did they write it? What caused so many experienced and celebrated voice actors such as Mark Hamill, Nancy Cartwright, Jodi Benson and others to appear in it? Was the special even finished, or intended to be finished?
I don't know the answers to any of these questions. I do know that there was a potentially good story within the muddle of too many supporting characters, stupid dialogue, and animation that is so atrocious that no one could possibly take it seriously, or even want to watch it.
The title of the special doesn't even make sense. It's called "Rapsittie Street Kids", which, judging from the way the nonexistent word "Rapsittie" sounds, would lead most viewers to assume that it is about a group of kids who are from the city and love rap music. I suppose that "Rapsittie" also sounds like "Rhapsody", but putting together the words "Rhapsody" and "Street" wouldn't make a lot of sense either, or attract an audience of children at which this special was presumably aiming.
Instead, the special takes place in what looks like an affluent suburb. Plus, only one character, an optimistic dreadlocked boy named Rick E. (voiced by Walter "the original black Power Ranger" Jones), actually raps, or at least speaks in rhyme.
Rick E. is evidently the only black student in his school. You learn that his parents died and that he's living with his grandmother, but that's about it. It would have been nice to know where he lived before moving in with his grandmother, and the fact that he appears to be the only African-American boy in a largely white neighborhood is a solid foundation for a potentially good story.
Rick E. also apparently has a crush on a rich girl in his class named Nicole, voiced by Paige O'Hara, best known for voicing Belle in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast". While O'Hara is a fine voice actress, it makes no sense at all that her character is supposed to be no older than a freshman in high school, yet she's voiced by a 46-year-old woman!
Anyway, Rick E. wants to give her a present for Christmas, but doesn't have the money to do so. So he decides to give her a teddy bear that his late mother gave to him years ago.
While Rick E. seems like a sweet boy, and his gift is evidently well-intentioned, any semblance of redeemable qualities you can extract from this special are lost when you hear the odd dialogue Rick E. says to himself out loud when coming to this decision. When deciding to give Nicole his beloved bear, he says (and yes, this is verbatim what words Walter Jones speaks for his character), "Momma, you gave me this bear cuz of love. So I'll give this bear cuz of love."
Obviously, an actor who is fluent in English read this line. I highly doubt the person who wrote it spoke English as a first language. The previous line reads like the writer entered a sentence in English, translated it on Google into Spanish, then translated those Spanish words into Arabic, then translated those words into Dutch, then to Japanese, then Swahili, then French, then finally back to English.
However, that clunky English dialogue is nothing compared to listening to Rick E.'s Great Grandma, voiced (allegedly) by Debra Wilson. For some reason, you can't understand a single word she says. Her character moves around like a robot, and speaks like a malfunctioning one. I know that Wilson is a funny actress, but I couldn't tell if, like Kenny in "South Park" or Groot from "Guardians of the Galaxy", she was intentionally speaking gibberish and it was supposed to be funny.
If it was supposed to be funny, it didn't work. Nothing in this special works, and I didn't even begin to scratch the surface of the things that are wrong with it.
Some people say that bad movies are best for remaking, not good movies. I think that's absolutely true, and "Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa" is a candidate for a story worth remaking.
As this special stands, it is horrible. Everything about it is awful, and children, if given the choice, would rather be gifted a box of coal for Christmas than this movie on DVD, and who could blame them?
Fortunately, this movie never saw a DVD release, and probably never will. It only aired once on TV, and earned notoriety thanks to internet purveyors of horrifically bad movies and TV shows. I suppose "Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa" must be seen to be believed, but you may wish to un-see even five seconds of the horrific animation, and that's just for starters.
If this film was made by a first semester animation student as a final project, it would be serviceable and might deserve a passing grade. After all, animators have to start somewhere.
However, it wasn't one person who made this film. Several adults worked on it, and someone at the WB! Network in 2002 apparently thought it was good enough to air in prime time with potentially millions of Americans being able to see it. Either that, or a disgruntled WB! employee wanted to get themselves fired.
Why did this special air on American television even once? Who wrote it? Why did they write it? What caused so many experienced and celebrated voice actors such as Mark Hamill, Nancy Cartwright, Jodi Benson and others to appear in it? Was the special even finished, or intended to be finished?
I don't know the answers to any of these questions. I do know that there was a potentially good story within the muddle of too many supporting characters, stupid dialogue, and animation that is so atrocious that no one could possibly take it seriously, or even want to watch it.
The title of the special doesn't even make sense. It's called "Rapsittie Street Kids", which, judging from the way the nonexistent word "Rapsittie" sounds, would lead most viewers to assume that it is about a group of kids who are from the city and love rap music. I suppose that "Rapsittie" also sounds like "Rhapsody", but putting together the words "Rhapsody" and "Street" wouldn't make a lot of sense either, or attract an audience of children at which this special was presumably aiming.
Instead, the special takes place in what looks like an affluent suburb. Plus, only one character, an optimistic dreadlocked boy named Rick E. (voiced by Walter "the original black Power Ranger" Jones), actually raps, or at least speaks in rhyme.
Rick E. is evidently the only black student in his school. You learn that his parents died and that he's living with his grandmother, but that's about it. It would have been nice to know where he lived before moving in with his grandmother, and the fact that he appears to be the only African-American boy in a largely white neighborhood is a solid foundation for a potentially good story.
Rick E. also apparently has a crush on a rich girl in his class named Nicole, voiced by Paige O'Hara, best known for voicing Belle in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast". While O'Hara is a fine voice actress, it makes no sense at all that her character is supposed to be no older than a freshman in high school, yet she's voiced by a 46-year-old woman!
Anyway, Rick E. wants to give her a present for Christmas, but doesn't have the money to do so. So he decides to give her a teddy bear that his late mother gave to him years ago.
While Rick E. seems like a sweet boy, and his gift is evidently well-intentioned, any semblance of redeemable qualities you can extract from this special are lost when you hear the odd dialogue Rick E. says to himself out loud when coming to this decision. When deciding to give Nicole his beloved bear, he says (and yes, this is verbatim what words Walter Jones speaks for his character), "Momma, you gave me this bear cuz of love. So I'll give this bear cuz of love."
Obviously, an actor who is fluent in English read this line. I highly doubt the person who wrote it spoke English as a first language. The previous line reads like the writer entered a sentence in English, translated it on Google into Spanish, then translated those Spanish words into Arabic, then translated those words into Dutch, then to Japanese, then Swahili, then French, then finally back to English.
However, that clunky English dialogue is nothing compared to listening to Rick E.'s Great Grandma, voiced (allegedly) by Debra Wilson. For some reason, you can't understand a single word she says. Her character moves around like a robot, and speaks like a malfunctioning one. I know that Wilson is a funny actress, but I couldn't tell if, like Kenny in "South Park" or Groot from "Guardians of the Galaxy", she was intentionally speaking gibberish and it was supposed to be funny.
If it was supposed to be funny, it didn't work. Nothing in this special works, and I didn't even begin to scratch the surface of the things that are wrong with it.
Some people say that bad movies are best for remaking, not good movies. I think that's absolutely true, and "Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa" is a candidate for a story worth remaking.
As this special stands, it is horrible. Everything about it is awful, and children, if given the choice, would rather be gifted a box of coal for Christmas than this movie on DVD, and who could blame them?
Fortunately, this movie never saw a DVD release, and probably never will. It only aired once on TV, and earned notoriety thanks to internet purveyors of horrifically bad movies and TV shows. I suppose "Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa" must be seen to be believed, but you may wish to un-see even five seconds of the horrific animation, and that's just for starters.
"The Wolf of Wall Street" is tremendously entertaining. When watching this movie in a theater, and you resist using the bathroom even after imbibing a medium Cherry Coke, you know it is the sign of exceptional storytelling.
This movie's narrative structure is similar to "Goodfellas" (1990) and "Boogie Nights" (1997) in that the first half of the film is fun to watch as you witness the rise of the antihero protagonist and the supporting players. Especially if you greatly dislike the protagonist and resent his rise to power, if the second half is hard to watch, you know you are seeing something good.
However, although the story arc is similar, it's not quite as great as the aforementioned films. Granted you witness great acting from almost everyone involved, and eye-opening moments.
Unfortunately, the movie never got past the excesses and to the true consequences of the protagonist's actions. Even then, the movie seemed to be mostly preoccupied with the high lives these stock-brokers were living, and virtually ignored the lives they ruined on their way to the top.
Leonardo DiCaprio is Jordan Belfort, an ambitious man who takes a job as a stockbroker on Wall Street. Unfortunately, despite having a dynamic mentor (played by a superb, scene-stealing Matthew McConaughey), it is 1987, and the stock market takes a plunge that puts him of work.
Soon afterwords, he takes a modest job in a boiler room selling penny stocks. It turns out that Belfort is not just good at selling these worthless intangibles: he's great at it.
Eventually, he starts his own company with shady children's furniture salesman Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) and other compatriots from the boiler room, where they employ the pump and dump scam to their advantage. When they amass enough money, they begin to give their firm a respectable name, Stratton Oakmont, and make money hand over fist using the same marauding techniques, only on a larger scale.
I'll be the first to admit that stock trading and the tribulations of Wall Street are very foreign to me. If I see a movie like "Wall Street", I don't know what the numbers scrolling across the NYSE mean. I could only rely on the faces of Michael Douglass or Charlie Sheen to know if the overall news was good or not.
To the film's credit, I could understand how Stratton Oakmont amassed their wealth. I can also understand the illegality of their trade, and I'm certain that most audience members with no Wall Street familiarity will not be lost.
Even if one hates these people for their avarice, and the immoral and reprehensible lives that they lead as a result of their accumulated fortune, one cannot deny how entertaining it is to watch these shenanigans. Their charades may not be appealing, especially when the Securities and Exchange Commission begins to take note of their activities, but they are still engrossing.
However, the party lasts a little too long at a running time of 180 minutes. This movie could have easily been cut back 40 minutes by taking out a party scene or two. Another scene where Belfort meets with corrupt Swiss banker Jean-Jacques Saurel (Jean Dujardin) could also have been shortened significantly.
Plus, with these people living so high off their riches, it is impossible to believe that no one got hurt financially in the process. Belfort lived the high life (both figuratively because of his wealth, and literally because of his excessive drug use), but there had to have been lives that were ruined because of his schemes.
Still, as far as acting goes, DiCaprio himself owns this film, and it definitely is among his best performances. His breaking the fourth wall is done enough so that it is not redundant, and his motivational speeches to his firm members are incredibly over-the-top, but appropriately so given his character.
Jonah Hill was decent as Belfort's right hand man, although his performance sometimes became a little too comically inappropriate, as if he was playing the fat guy who falls on his face the same way he has done in lesser comedies (excluding "Superbad" (2007) and "21 Jump Street"). However, the scene where he nearly chokes to death when high on Quaalude was scary for me to watch.
That same scene, where Belfort is also dramatically debilitated from the same kind of Quaalude, received some laughs from the audience in my theater, but I didn't find the scene funny at all. It was one of the most memorable drug scenes I've seen in a mainstream movie, but like Uma Thurman's heroin overdose moment in "Pulp Fiction" (1994), and Julianne Moore's hyper, heartbreaking, high-on-cocaine "too many things" scene in "Boogie Nights" (1997), it made me never want to try drugs.
On top of stand-out performances by Margot Robbie as Belfort's trophy wife, Rob Reiner as Belfort's profane and no-nonsense father, and McConaughey's brief but memorable role, the ensemble cast succeeded for the most part in making greed look ugly. When the firm hits their chests and chant an innocuous but catchy quasi-tribal tune, they make true fools out of themselves, but are too busy conforming to care.
While "The Wolf of Wall Street" is a memorable movie, it doesn't quite reach the emotional depths of director Martin Scorsese's previous movies like "Raging Bull" or "Goodfellas". In the latter film, when Henry Hill's life takes a turn for the worst, you can feel him crash and burn.
Here, Jordan Belfort eventually falls, but appears to hit a bed of roses. He story ends with consequences, but he just ends up not as wealthy as he used to be.
This movie leaves with the implication that Belfort lived his high life so well that the tab he had to pay wasn't all that steep. Somebody had to pay the rest of that bill, and probably did, but you wouldn't know it from seeing it here.
This movie's narrative structure is similar to "Goodfellas" (1990) and "Boogie Nights" (1997) in that the first half of the film is fun to watch as you witness the rise of the antihero protagonist and the supporting players. Especially if you greatly dislike the protagonist and resent his rise to power, if the second half is hard to watch, you know you are seeing something good.
However, although the story arc is similar, it's not quite as great as the aforementioned films. Granted you witness great acting from almost everyone involved, and eye-opening moments.
Unfortunately, the movie never got past the excesses and to the true consequences of the protagonist's actions. Even then, the movie seemed to be mostly preoccupied with the high lives these stock-brokers were living, and virtually ignored the lives they ruined on their way to the top.
Leonardo DiCaprio is Jordan Belfort, an ambitious man who takes a job as a stockbroker on Wall Street. Unfortunately, despite having a dynamic mentor (played by a superb, scene-stealing Matthew McConaughey), it is 1987, and the stock market takes a plunge that puts him of work.
Soon afterwords, he takes a modest job in a boiler room selling penny stocks. It turns out that Belfort is not just good at selling these worthless intangibles: he's great at it.
Eventually, he starts his own company with shady children's furniture salesman Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) and other compatriots from the boiler room, where they employ the pump and dump scam to their advantage. When they amass enough money, they begin to give their firm a respectable name, Stratton Oakmont, and make money hand over fist using the same marauding techniques, only on a larger scale.
I'll be the first to admit that stock trading and the tribulations of Wall Street are very foreign to me. If I see a movie like "Wall Street", I don't know what the numbers scrolling across the NYSE mean. I could only rely on the faces of Michael Douglass or Charlie Sheen to know if the overall news was good or not.
To the film's credit, I could understand how Stratton Oakmont amassed their wealth. I can also understand the illegality of their trade, and I'm certain that most audience members with no Wall Street familiarity will not be lost.
Even if one hates these people for their avarice, and the immoral and reprehensible lives that they lead as a result of their accumulated fortune, one cannot deny how entertaining it is to watch these shenanigans. Their charades may not be appealing, especially when the Securities and Exchange Commission begins to take note of their activities, but they are still engrossing.
However, the party lasts a little too long at a running time of 180 minutes. This movie could have easily been cut back 40 minutes by taking out a party scene or two. Another scene where Belfort meets with corrupt Swiss banker Jean-Jacques Saurel (Jean Dujardin) could also have been shortened significantly.
Plus, with these people living so high off their riches, it is impossible to believe that no one got hurt financially in the process. Belfort lived the high life (both figuratively because of his wealth, and literally because of his excessive drug use), but there had to have been lives that were ruined because of his schemes.
Still, as far as acting goes, DiCaprio himself owns this film, and it definitely is among his best performances. His breaking the fourth wall is done enough so that it is not redundant, and his motivational speeches to his firm members are incredibly over-the-top, but appropriately so given his character.
Jonah Hill was decent as Belfort's right hand man, although his performance sometimes became a little too comically inappropriate, as if he was playing the fat guy who falls on his face the same way he has done in lesser comedies (excluding "Superbad" (2007) and "21 Jump Street"). However, the scene where he nearly chokes to death when high on Quaalude was scary for me to watch.
That same scene, where Belfort is also dramatically debilitated from the same kind of Quaalude, received some laughs from the audience in my theater, but I didn't find the scene funny at all. It was one of the most memorable drug scenes I've seen in a mainstream movie, but like Uma Thurman's heroin overdose moment in "Pulp Fiction" (1994), and Julianne Moore's hyper, heartbreaking, high-on-cocaine "too many things" scene in "Boogie Nights" (1997), it made me never want to try drugs.
On top of stand-out performances by Margot Robbie as Belfort's trophy wife, Rob Reiner as Belfort's profane and no-nonsense father, and McConaughey's brief but memorable role, the ensemble cast succeeded for the most part in making greed look ugly. When the firm hits their chests and chant an innocuous but catchy quasi-tribal tune, they make true fools out of themselves, but are too busy conforming to care.
While "The Wolf of Wall Street" is a memorable movie, it doesn't quite reach the emotional depths of director Martin Scorsese's previous movies like "Raging Bull" or "Goodfellas". In the latter film, when Henry Hill's life takes a turn for the worst, you can feel him crash and burn.
Here, Jordan Belfort eventually falls, but appears to hit a bed of roses. He story ends with consequences, but he just ends up not as wealthy as he used to be.
This movie leaves with the implication that Belfort lived his high life so well that the tab he had to pay wasn't all that steep. Somebody had to pay the rest of that bill, and probably did, but you wouldn't know it from seeing it here.
So, "Confessions of a Porn Addict" is not a real documentary. I mention that fact in the beginning of this review because I didn't know that fact while I was watching it. It was only when I looked the film up later that its intent as a mockumentary came to my attention.
Did not knowing it was a mockumentary ruin my enjoyment of the film? Well, movies about people who struggle with addiction, particularly an addiction as complicated as sex addiction, are not entertaining to begin with. They can be fascinating, but definitely not enjoyable to watch.
For instance, Paul Schrader's "Auto Focus" (2002) was a good film that started out as kind of fun, only to gradually decline in mood into a grim portrayal of a bleak and sad life that catches up to the protagonist. The film has no shortage of nudity, but a huge shortage of eroticism and excitement.
Simply put, there's nothing inherently funny about sex addiction. Its status as an actual addiction is the subject of hot debate within psychology circles, but those who succumb to it lead truly sad lives.
So if sex addiction is not funny, why make a mockumentary about it? Why make a film about a guy who spends most of his time in his apartment masturbating to hardcore porn to the point where he loses his girlfriend, his job, and a chance at a normal productive life, and pass it off as a comedy? What's the point?
I have read defenders of this film label this movie as "deadpan", and "of an acquired taste", which may be what the filmmakers intended. However, to me, this film was equivalent to a friend of mine telling me that he has cancer, and then telling me he was just kidding three days later.
If an actual friend told me this outright lie, I wouldn't laugh, nor would I be particularly offended. If anything, I would wonder what the point of lying to me was.
I watch these events unfold on the screen, and the last thing I want to do is laugh. I see Mark Tobias (Spencer Rice) going through stacks of porno DVDs and magazines, and want him to get help and declutter his apartment.
I see Mark go to a support group by the urging of his friends who are filming this documentary, and, after the group director suggests Mark literally lock his penis up in a cage and throw away the key, I want him to join another group. This bizarre solution to Mark's curbing his masturbation habit flies right in the face of the group's serenity prayer, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." The group director's apparent not knowing the difference is ironic, but not funny.
I also see Mark's ex-girlfriend, Felice (Lindsey Connell), actually move to Los Angeles to star in pornographic films, presumably to spite Mark, and I think to myself, "Hey, that is one of those scenarios where truth is stranger than fiction". But in the end, it's not funny.
"Confessions of a Sex Addict" would have made an engrossing documentary if it were real. Showing someone's struggle to overcome an addiction more rooted in selfishness and self-indulgence than other addictions would not only have made a captivating, albeit grim, subject, and it could have been a tool to help others struggling with similar demons.
Instead, its mockumentary style and execution felt simultaneously inappropriate, inert, flaccid, and most of all, pointless. There's nothing wrong with making fun of a taboo subject, but it helps when the filmmakers actually know how to make it funny.
Did not knowing it was a mockumentary ruin my enjoyment of the film? Well, movies about people who struggle with addiction, particularly an addiction as complicated as sex addiction, are not entertaining to begin with. They can be fascinating, but definitely not enjoyable to watch.
For instance, Paul Schrader's "Auto Focus" (2002) was a good film that started out as kind of fun, only to gradually decline in mood into a grim portrayal of a bleak and sad life that catches up to the protagonist. The film has no shortage of nudity, but a huge shortage of eroticism and excitement.
Simply put, there's nothing inherently funny about sex addiction. Its status as an actual addiction is the subject of hot debate within psychology circles, but those who succumb to it lead truly sad lives.
So if sex addiction is not funny, why make a mockumentary about it? Why make a film about a guy who spends most of his time in his apartment masturbating to hardcore porn to the point where he loses his girlfriend, his job, and a chance at a normal productive life, and pass it off as a comedy? What's the point?
I have read defenders of this film label this movie as "deadpan", and "of an acquired taste", which may be what the filmmakers intended. However, to me, this film was equivalent to a friend of mine telling me that he has cancer, and then telling me he was just kidding three days later.
If an actual friend told me this outright lie, I wouldn't laugh, nor would I be particularly offended. If anything, I would wonder what the point of lying to me was.
I watch these events unfold on the screen, and the last thing I want to do is laugh. I see Mark Tobias (Spencer Rice) going through stacks of porno DVDs and magazines, and want him to get help and declutter his apartment.
I see Mark go to a support group by the urging of his friends who are filming this documentary, and, after the group director suggests Mark literally lock his penis up in a cage and throw away the key, I want him to join another group. This bizarre solution to Mark's curbing his masturbation habit flies right in the face of the group's serenity prayer, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." The group director's apparent not knowing the difference is ironic, but not funny.
I also see Mark's ex-girlfriend, Felice (Lindsey Connell), actually move to Los Angeles to star in pornographic films, presumably to spite Mark, and I think to myself, "Hey, that is one of those scenarios where truth is stranger than fiction". But in the end, it's not funny.
"Confessions of a Sex Addict" would have made an engrossing documentary if it were real. Showing someone's struggle to overcome an addiction more rooted in selfishness and self-indulgence than other addictions would not only have made a captivating, albeit grim, subject, and it could have been a tool to help others struggling with similar demons.
Instead, its mockumentary style and execution felt simultaneously inappropriate, inert, flaccid, and most of all, pointless. There's nothing wrong with making fun of a taboo subject, but it helps when the filmmakers actually know how to make it funny.