Dad's Pooves

That actually comes from a joke in a Monty Python episode. A take-off on the old Britcom "Dad's Army." Absolutely no idea at all why I even remembered it.

I was at the video store today looking for a couple of movies for the weekend. I came upon a very unexpected find. "All The Queen's Men." I knew about this movie, I'd heard about it a while back. During World War II, a quartet of men go behind enemy (German) lines undercover - undercover as in, dressed like women (the army calls them the Poof Platoon). It co-starred Mr Eddie Izzard, the transvestite comedian.

When I saw it on the shelf, I was slightly taken aback. "Damn, that's already in the video store? I don't remember it being in theatres! It must really suck," I said to myself. "This cover looks really bad. It must suck," I said. "It stars Matt LeBlanc," I said. And with that, enough was said.

But I rented it anyway. The Izzard Call.

When I put it in, I got to the menu. It had a myriad of choices: Play movie. Scene Selection. Cast and Crew. "This is gonna suck," I said. I clicked on Cast and Crew. A still picture of each actor with a list of movies. Very cheap. "This is gonna suck," I said, one last time.

And so the movie started. And you know what? It sucked. It sucked bigtime. The graphics of the titles sucked, the music sucked, the scenery sucked, the plot sucked, the writing really sucked, the jokes sucked, and well, as you might guess with a Matt LeBlanc movie, the acting sucked.

I wish I could give you a better review other than "it sucked." But I can't. I mean, the idea of four strapping men (well, actually, a lie, three strapping, one very effeminate) going into Germany: not one of them has the slightest resemblance to a woman (think four linemen for the Chicago Bears in drag, I mean, let's be honest, Eddie himself does a bit in his stand-up comdedy about dressing as a woman with his extremely butch face). And only one of them speaks German. One of them is a 60-year old man. Add to that the fact that we're in World War II, and Eddie Izzard is given, well, Eddie Izzard lines. Like, after a German mentions Eddie's character is bisexual, pronounced "bee-sex-yahl," Eddie says, "Yes, I'm bee-sex-yahl, I have sex with bees." I used to hear that all the time back when I was in World War II. I'm sure you did too.

When movie list time came, I was all set to give it one star. And something held me back. I didn't want to give it the same rating as the schlockfest "Robinson Crusoe On Mars." So I gave it one and a half stars. Then I almost went back and changed it, based on the theory that at least the makers of "Robinson Crusoe On Mars" knew they were making a schlockfest. They took a budget of about $1.25 and gave it all they had. By rights, that should have rated higher than this piece of tripe.

But in the end, I kept my one and a half star rating. I figure one for the movie and another half for Eddie. Poor Eddie. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time.