Porklips Now

"Never get out of the car. Mertz got out of the car. Then he got out of the car business..."

Did you like "Apocalypse Now" ? Then you should love "Porklips Now," probably the greatest no-budget amateur film (the indy hadn't yet been invented) of the '80s. Spot-on parody fantastically directed with truly bizarre performances. Skewers its target in less than 30 minutes with the best Brando impression of all time.

Why the heck isn't this available on DVD (along with director Ernie Fosselius' "Hardware Wars") ? And why didn't Fosselius end up directing feature comedies ?? Your mission is to find this film. And you're not borrowing my raggedy VHS copy.

This movie is way way better then "Apocalypse Now".

It's not too funny. But You'll be able watch this without fast-forwarding through it.

Skip "Apocalypse Now" but pick this one up at your local video store.

The way Ernie catches the whole mood and style with what was probably a super 8 camera and a dull patch of suburbia is amazing. The writing was incredible in the way he turned his bad clichés into almost sensible strings of thought, not to mention the great camera work. We've all heard of stream of consciousness, I guess you'd call this stream of punconsciousness.

Every time I see this, I actually manage to see something new, be it one of the ads that flash by way to fast, or something so obvious you slap yourself for missing it before. The attention to detail is much better than several big budget movies manage, it's too bad that big budget directors aren't required to make at least ONE no-budget film.

One doesn't NEED to see Apocalypse Now to get this movie, (Yet another sign of it's quality) but it would definitely help. I saw this after seeing the original, but I would love to see someone see them in the opposite order and watch their reactions. Although Apocalypse Now has many 'black comedy' moments, seeing Porklips Now first will probably have a very interesting effect on what gets laughed at.

I give this a full 5 stars

Someone I don't know online provided a print of this short film that I had somehow either never heard of or completely forgot about. I was crazy about Apocalypse Now and have seen it many times and know it well as I'm sure most on here have do as well, and this was a cute, clever, low, low, low budget parody of the greatest film about the Vietnam War made so far. This is always amusing and sometimes laugh out loud funny. Of course, the presence of Billy Gray who I watched in the original broadcasts of Father Knows Best was a surprise and he is in the spirit of things here. I hadn't thought about him in years. Outside of the sitcom pablum, a big hit in its day, he showed flashes of real talent, but he just quit the biz after this. You don't see that often. Anyway, a crudely made fun little parody of a great film.

This truly hilarious take-off of "Apocalypse Now" is as filled with textured background gags as any Kurtzman-Elder page from the old "Mad" (check out the books in the bookcases Fosselius pans across while Mertz reads poetry to Dullard, for example). You might remember Fosselius from the great parody "Hardware Wars" he produced for about 29 cents and which got its first exposure on local Bay Area television fave Bob Wilkins' "Creature Features." Here, Fosselius works with a big budget (at least $1.25!) and the result is this 28-minute epic that zeroes in like a laser on every pretentious absurdity of Coppola's magnum epic. My favorite bit comes at the end when Dullard comes after Mertz with a knife and Fosselius cuts to a meat slicer churning out very thin slices of bologna. Yeah, there's a few dead spots, but well worth seeking out if only for the raspberry it blows directly in Coppola's face. Don't get me wrong - I like "Apocalypse Now" and Coppola, but I just crack up every time I see this. A classic!