Sextette

Sextetteⁱ is the crowned exponent of the cringe genre, or at least would be if the gods could bear such atrocity as a cringe genre.

It's just... it's unwatchable. The whole cast & production crew are TV schmucks, which universally makes for terrible cinema ; then the supposed starlet supposedly Jayne Mansfield-ing all over herself is a complete geriatric case -- she moves with all the grace of an arthritic badger, she readily commands all the gruff tone and delivery of a slaphappy heavyweight long retired, her waistline'd absolutely betray late-trimester pregnancy if she were anywhere near nubile (but as it is it's just an utter embarrassment)... I've no words. It's like watching selected footage of commercial fraud, like one of those cases where a "slick operator" tricks some retiree into buying eighteen organs (the musical instrument) or an ever less relevant party machine tricks some misfortunate war veteran into "running for president", something he's self-obviously and most transparently neither interested in to any degree nor much capable of even representing to any standard in those brief (and ever briefer) moments of lucidity.ⁱⁱ

The Ra-ra-ra-America general conventions, plottings & pious frauds that'd have maybe even mattered the last time anyone laid the laidin' lady (which is to say a good three-four decades prior) fall indescribably flat ; her delivery of Rodney Dangerfield-level throwaways just out-and-out terrible (to say nothing of predictable -- it's a lot like playing Go with a five year old who simply puts his token right under whatever you've played no matter what). Then the forced comedy whereby the "British" stock character readily admits to "being gay" on "television -- which is the instagram everyone cares about, hurr" or somesuch nonsense because (wait for it) he thought (in his "Britishness") what's meant is, you know, gay, as opposed to faggot HAHAHAHA see because HE IS BRITISH HE DOESNT GWET IT HAHAHAHAHA ce-am mai ris.

Meanwhile the edges of the atrocity are, for their pretense to "framing" the story into "everyone knows" normalcy, even more bothersome. The stupid cunt / "influencer" of the 70s, for instance, is -- between her idiotic "women in business & with careers" jacket and hairdo and stupid fucking scarf -- even less tolerable than the necromancy'd chorus girl. You just want to bitchslap that fake "empathy" / concern trolling smug mug offa her face with a well greased socket wrench -- or at least, I do.

I'm not saying this film shouldn't have been made ; in fact, very well that it was made. I'm not even saying it shouldn't be watched, in general, however formulated. I just don't want to watch it myself, that's all.

1. 1977, by Ken Hughes, after a play by Mae West, with an eighty-four year old Mae West, Dom DeLuise, Tony Curtis. Also included, cameos by Ringo Starr, Alice Cooper, Regis Philbin, George Raft etc. [↩]
2. Can you look at poor ol' Biden and not feel sorry for the victim of what's quite undeniably senior abuse ?

   You think he even understands what the fuck the weirdo nurses in his strange retirement home are doing to him all the time ? And why the fuck can't he tremble his lips in peace like every other foggy octogenarian since creation ? I can fart in my home to my heart's content, and when I'll be old I'll be able to tremble as much as I fucking want (or need to), which I suppose is putting me ahead of these "presidents" of nothing in particular yet again. [↩]