Porklips Now

O....M....G.

Sorry if the above quote was inaccurate as to the price of porklips, but it's been 25 years since I saw the original, on the flip side of "Hardware Wars," by far inferior.

Since then, I've run around saying "Porklips" is THE funniest film ever made. Yep, better than Spinal Tap, in a low-budget kind of way, which Fosselius plays up.

"Apocalypse Now" is the #1 best film ever made, so I guess it'd stand to reason I'd rank Porklips as the #1 funniest film. I wonder of Coppola has ever seen Porklips? Anyway, about 5 years ago I found a VHS copy on ebay, and snatched it up. Took it to a fiend's house, where we literally rolled in the aisles for hours.

"I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree. Dullard? Dullard, are you listening to me?" I called the fiend a month later to get my tape back. "Oops. I taped football over it." *)%*@#)!!! So now I'm on a new quest...If anyone knows where to obtain this, email me! Fred Mertz...Operating beyond any reasonable or sane price controls.

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 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.

"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.