THE EJO SCEIP REPORT

Thursday, March 22, 2000

Ejo is a special correspondent for the box office report.  Periodically, Sceip will give his thoughts on movies or complain about certain reviews that might appear on the main pages.  His first review is of the second worst movie ever made, "Whipped." Ejo was really offended about this film and wanted to post his thoughts.  I agree with everything in the following review.  

WHIPPED - FULL REVIEW

Are you familiar with the concept of Bad DVD Night? There are a lot of silly movies out there…a lot of movies that don’t deserve their full admission price during their first-run at a movie theatre…a lot of movies that are actually somewhat hard to enjoy in a theatre and still be neighborly to the other theatre patrons around you. Sometimes, you just need to share the pain a movie is inflicting on you with your friends as it is happening. My advice to you? Wait for the movie to come out on DVD and rent it. This is the best way to turn a bad movie experience into a fun one. You can go Mystery Science 3000 on the movie and do commentary the entire time. You know the deal; some movies are just so bad that they are actually kind of good given the right circumstances. Science Fiction movies involving the planet Mars, Romantic Comedies with nary a Hanks or a Ryan to be found, and especially the plethora of horrible Horror movies trying to tap into some of that Scream money are all excellent candidates for Bad DVD Night. Man, I have had some good times predicting who the killer is in such movies as I Still Know What You Did Last Summer…"It’s Moesha, It’s Moesha!"

Good times.

BUT, before advising you to partake of Bad DVD Night, I would be remiss if I didn’t also give you a friendly warning. When you attempt Bad DVD Night you must also accept the risks inherent therein. Sometimes, things can go wrong with Bad DVD Night. Sometimes, you are five minutes into your selected movie and you realize something is horribly amiss. Sometimes, a movie you thought would be really fun to watch and make fun of is just so incredibly bad it can’t be enjoyed on any level. My friends, welcome to a little something I like to call BAD Bad DVD Night.

BAD Bad DVD Night is not for the faint-of heart. It is an exercise in self-mutilation. I don’t recommend it.

BAD Bad DVD Night was in full effect last week when a few of us decided to view what we naively assumed to be a innocuous little R-rated adult comedy by the name of Whipped.

Here is my one word review of Whipped: Crap

Here is my two-word review of Whipped: Ferocious Crap

Here is my three-word review of Whipped: Translucent Ferocious Crap

You can thank those poetry magnet things you can put on your refrigerator for my two and three word reviews.

Here is my 1,176-word review of Whipped:

I am not exactly sure what genre Whipped most belongs to. Is Evil a genre? I guess the makers of the movie would call it a comedy/satire. Do not be misled, there is absolutely no humor or insight to be found. Whipped was written and directed by a first-time director and USC Film School grad by the name of Peter M. Cohen. Make sure you remember that name…not because he is some sort of up-and-coming talent, but so that you can make sure to avoid anything he may be even remotely involved with in the future…not that I expect him to get work anytime soon. Seriously, if this dude is even the guy who goes and gets the donuts for the movie set, AVOID THAT MOVIE! If there is any justice in this world, they will make it so that he isn’t even able to call numbers that start with California or New York State area codes. By the way, if USC Film School is responsible for many more filmmakers of the caliber of a George Lucas or a Peter M. Cohen, they ought to shut that place the hell down.

First of all, I am not going to worry about ruining the movie for those of you who are lucky enough to not have seen it. If you watch this movie after reading this review then you suck and you deserve everything you get. I am trying to do a public service here. The Basic Plot: Whipped stars Amanda Peet as a single woman named Mia who dates three guys at the same time who all happen to be friends. At first, the three friends don’t realize that they are all dating the same woman. The movie begins by showing us how a group of four arrogant and unsympathetic guys gather each Sunday morning for breakfast at a diner to discuss the previous weekend’s "scams". "Scamming", is the term they use for picking up women. We learn that these guys care little to nothing about the women they date, so it is supposed to be a big pay-off for us when they get their comeuppance at the end as we learn that Mia has turned the tables on the guys and "scammed" them. We learn that Mia saw the three guys; Brad, Eric, and Zeke at a park trying to pick up a group of girls and decided at the time to date all of them and watch them squirm when all of their techniques are used on them. I guess the movie tries to make the point that women can be every bit as conniving and uncaring as men. The movie’s tagline is: "Never underestimate the power of a woman".

OK, let’s now discuss why I have such unbridled rage towards such an insignificant movie. First, you need to know that Whipped is basically a student film, and a bad one at that. The afore-mentioned Mr. Cohen basically conned thirty of his friends and associates into putting up the three million dollar budget of the film. What is Peter M. Cohen’s solution as to how to get his buddies to invest in his movie? Make them the friggin’ actors in the movie! Does it matter that they have never acted in a movie before? Not to him. My least favorite actor has got to be Zorie Barber, who plays Zeke. Imagine the acting style of one of Kevin Smith’s cronies to the power of ten. Now subtract Kevin Smith’s witty dialog and insert the stiffest, most inane, most contrived dialog you have ever heard and you still don’t even begin to approach how bad this dude is. Barber is incapable of displaying any emotion, so he just scrunches up his face and says the "F" word like every other word. All he can attempt to do is act annoyed and he can’t even do that convincingly. The dialog in this movie is the worst I have ever even heard of. I think Cohen was trying to write his version of In the Company of Men or Swingers, both infinitely better movies. He thought that he could write an interesting and funny film about the sexcapades of a group of guys and the dichotomy of relationships in society today. He was wrong. He was very wrong.

Here is a tip: if you write a movie where all of the characters are un-sympathetic, you still need to at least make them interesting in some way. That way, I will care about what happens to them, even if it is bad.

Here is another tip: if you make a R-rated adult movie about sex and relationships, how about including a little sex and maybe some nudity to justify the rating?

You know that show on HBO where they show short films made by kids? I have never seen a movie on that show as bad or as amateurish as whipped.

I think watching Whipped may have changed me on some fundamental level. I am pretty sure I was more pure-of-heart pre-Whipped. I have such anger towards anyone associated with the creation or distribution of the movie. It’s not as though all they did was rob me of two hours of my life. I think we all died inside a little bit that day.

After watching Whipped, I felt like Elizabeth Shue in the shower scene from Leaving Las Vegas just after she had been brutally assaulted; as I lay, a crumpled mass in the fetal position on the floor of my shower, I contemplated why no matter how much I scrubbed and scrubbed I just couldn’t seem to get clean.

Don’t watch Whipped because you like Amanda Peet and dug her in The Whole Nine Yards. Even though this movie was actually made in 1998, before much of her success, you will never be able to view her the same way again. She will never garner my forgiveness.

Here’s something I would like to see happen: I would like to see Syd Field sue for slander because one of his screenwriting books is referenced in the movie.

I would also like to see the movie’s distributor, Destination Films, go out of business. They should be ashamed.

A quick check of The Internet Movie Database reveals that none of the major players involved with the creation of Whipped seems to be working on any up-coming projects. Keep your fingers crossed!

Since John L.’s Kickin’ Box Office deals primarily with how movies perform at the box-office and why, I guess I should say something about that. Whipped had a budget of three million dollars. It’s had an opening weekend gross of 2 .72 million dollars, due mostly to a preview that cleverly only made the movie look mostly bad. Kudos to the people who put that together! Whipped has a current cumulative gross of 4.14 million dollars. Hopefully it lost money after marketing costs. I would hate to think that anyone was compensated in any way for this monstrosity.

In the immortal words of Flavor Flav: "Consider yourselves WARNED!"

Here is my four-word review of Whipped: Avoid At All Costs

Ejo Sceip, Out.

JOHN L.:  By the way, Ejo is the biggest "Almost Famous" mark in the world, and he loves Kate Hudson.  If you have not seen AF, he highly suggests you go out to the local video store and rent or buy it.  Bye for now.