All in Good Taste

Perhaps I have a warped mind, but I usually enjoy films that show the film industry can laugh at itself. The best of the few films of this type which I have seen are parodies with sequences that include biting satire - for example "Mistress" and parts of "Starlet" - these are priceless. More commonly the humour is of the slapstick type and is much less satisfying. However even these often have a number of sequences which parody movies that have been complete disasters, so bad that they are very very funny. Watching can then also be quite amusing if one keeps a finger on the fast forward button to avoid getting bogged down. "All in Good Taste" is different; I cannot remember seeing any other such film that was as totally devoid of humour. Its story is about a promising new scriptwriter who is asked to rewrite his morally wholesome script so that it can be used for the production of a B movie nudie - which must of course be "all in good taste". It sounds a wonderful story-line for a featherweight but quite enjoyable comedy, and for two minutes after I started playing the tape I hoped that was what I would be watching. Rarely has disappointment been greater. It was pure, unadulterated and very corny farce with hardly any funny lines or situations, and was unfortunately also very sleazy. Who authorised wasting money on the production of such garbage I do not know - my advice is not to waste another cent by buying or renting this film; buy it on VHS only if you find it listed for less than the cost of a blank tape (not improbable!), but even then do not bother to watch it before you tape over it.

I checked this one out of a 99 cent video rental store a few years back, for the sole purpose of seeing whether or not the caption on the box which read 'and Jim Carrey' had any merit. The movie seemed to have been made in the early 80's, so this would've been right in the middle of his first comedy club, impressionist act. Possibly his very first movie role.

The film, billed as a very raunchy comedy, revolves around a journalist who's sent in to infiltrate several adult-orientated businesses in search of a hit feature for his publication. With assured 'Canadian Content', it was bound to have blatant nudity to no end, and Jim might more than likely be captured au' natural for the camera.

As Canadian films go, this is A-typical. Bad cinematography coupled with a middle-school style of boisterous stage acting, and a plot fit to be marked with the Surgeon General's warning.

Normally, I'm not the type of guy who gets his jollies from gazing at the cracks of feature film actors before they were famous (no matter what you've heard), but this was too good to pass up. If it checked out, I'd be on the phone with 'Hard Copy' so fast.

So after about 40 minutes of misfire humor,several dozen floppy breast shots, and a directing style below-par for even a 'Mentos' ad,..no Jim. Then comes the scene where our journalist friend takes his story into the shady hallows of a sleazy massage parlor. It starts out as hokey as you'd expect, with the reporter getting totally bare-assed and wandering around the facilities, sheepishly hiding his goodies for pseudo-comedic effect.

Then you notice the photographer the guy brings along to visually record the event. And there he is..'Allll-righty,then!' No, he doesn't say that. In fact, he has no lines for the entire scene. Yes,..he is nude (all pasty,in fact), and there are a few butt shots. But, he cleverly covers his goodies with the 35mm camera. That's okay..that's okay.

I still liked it better than 'Cable Guy'.

My curiosity satisfied, I eject the tape and toss it behind the couch across the room, where it stayed for several weeks until the video store phoned and surreptitiously, but not needfully, asked for it back.

I've not seen a copy of it since. Lucky for you, Jim. Be a shame if the public saw your 'grinch'. And I ain't talkin Dr. Seuss here either, rubberface!

First of all, they could have made a good movie out of it, the story isn't all THAT bad...they could have at least made an OK movie! But this is unwatchable!

And Jim Carrey is in this movie for about ONE MINUTE! Now I'm a huge Jim Carrey fan and I have 25 movies with him and I thought I'd get a good laugh out of this... But I didn't, even Copper Mountain is better than this because of the Sammy Davis Jr impression, and you know a movie is bad when Copper Mountain is better!

They used Jim Carrey and his name for the DVD cover to boost the sale just because he is the only one who ever got work after this movie!

Please, as a Jim Carrey fan to another, DO NOT WATCH IT!

Just go to youtube to see his bit in the movie... HONESTLY

This film was made by Austrian-born Anthony Kramwhether, who was most famous for the the three bizarro movies he produced from 1979-83, Mondo Strip, Mondo Nude, and Mondo Macho. He decided to built a movie around this concept by adding stock footage from those three films. The end result is a mess and what's worse is this was Jim Carrey's acting debut (the movie was shot in 1980, but not released until '83). He only appears for a full three minutes and has no speaking lines, but you do see some backside nudity of him. The movie was co-written by Rick Green, who would later work on one of the best Canadian TV series of the 1990s, The Red Green Show. If you see a DVD copy with Jim Carrey's face plastered on the front cover, don't be expecting much.

...if you are literally willing to do anything. Yes, this film "features" (not "stars") Jim Carrey...for maybe 3 minutes. He has no lines, just an odd, almost needless extra piece of flesh among piles of sagging, jiggling flesh. Why they wanted Jim Carrey's naked body here (at the time/1983 he was just some nameless, skinny nobody with a micro-penis) rather than paying a model/ANYONE else is really puzzling. Then again, this film is so bad it's not really worth asking such questions.