Sexy à mort

The dumb loser Frank Muzzy (Jason Lee) invites his alcoholic friend and gravedigger Eddie (Crispin Glover) to raise some money bootlegging US$ 250,000.00 in cigarettes for the powerful mobster Spider (Pruitt Taylor Vince) to Mexico. However, their truck catches fire and they lose the load. Frank becomes desperate to raise the amount, and hides himself with Eddie in the house of his mother. When Frank sees in the newspaper the picture of Crystal Harkness (Melissa Keller), the wife of the tycoon Harkness (Xander Berkeley), Eddie confirms that she was a former strip dancer and buried with a valuable necklace. Frank forces Eddie to exhume her body, but they do not find the jewel. Frank brings Crystal's corpse to his hideout and decides to ask a ransom to Harkness getting into a deeper trouble, while Eddie falls in love for Crystal.

"Drop Dead Sexy" is a silly, but very funny black comedy. The situation with a dead body made me recall "Weekend at Bernie's", but the jokes with the sexy Melissa Keller are different, with eroticism and even necrophilia. Crispin Glover is responsible for the best and funniest moments in this entertaining movie. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Sexy de Morrer" ("Sexy to Die")

After failing to get into several movies, we waited for an hour and a half to see this movie at it's premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, TX. The crowd at the premiere was probably biased, seeing as how the movie was filmed in Austin, but most of the crowd seemed to enjoy the film.

The film provides a different sense of humor, though somewhat dark. To avoid spoiling the plot, I'll tip-toe around the exact plot. The movie provided good laughs, if you are willing to get past the weirdness of the plot content. I did spend a good portion of the film almost afraid the content was going to cross the line. There were interesting twists, and never it lets you be certain where the plot line was headed. The plot left a few rough edges, unanswered questions, and characters that either appeared out of no-where, or disappeared just as fast.

I'm not a big fan of Jason Lee, but he seemed to play his character to the letter. Crispin Glover's character really threw me at first. I'd expect him to play this character given the content of the film, what I didn't expect was his accent. It's a tough fit for him, but he seems to do a pretty good job at pulling it off. I thought the supporting cast filled in very nicely alongside of the main actors and actresses.

The cinematography was pretty straight forward with the exception of flashback scenes, which I thought were nicely done. Aside a few technically cheesy shots, the filming was done alright.

All together, I give the movie decent marks for a somewhat original and twisted plot line, bringing a different sense of humor that's worth a few laughs. However since the movie's dark humor goes against my typical sensibilities, I drop my rating a mark or so.

Overall, I give it 6.4/10 to round to an even 6/10.

DROP DEAD SEXY 2005 (JASON LEE, CRISPIN GLOVER) DIRECTED BY: MICHAEL PHILIP ~ THE RUNDOWN: Did you see the title? The cover, perhaps? If so, you knew exactly what you were in for and got exactly what you expected: a lame comedy low on laughs and about as original as the name John. ~ I really shouldn't be reviewing this because there's nothing I can say that the DVD cover doesn't. But, what the hell, I'm a Crispin Glover fan and when I saw it sitting there on the shelf at Blockbuster I couldn't resist. Crispin, as usual, was fun to watch, and the rest of the cast was nicely assembled and actually gave the movie quite a bit of life even though Jason Lee is as annoying as an elderly driver. I guess the other good thing about it was that, at only seventy-nine minutes in length aside from the credits, it was nice and short. Still, it was essentially a complete waste of my time except of course I'm an avid Glover fan, which at least gives me some sort of excuse even though you probably don't have one. ~ Aside from extremely occasional chuckle-worthy moments, the movie's attempts at causing laughter are cheesy, predictable and absolutely futile, good enough only for stupid teenagers and/or people very high on something. The premise of the movie is ridiculous, cheap and slightly more generic than Dr. Thunder, and pans out like a deformed Cohen Bros movie. Those films are, of course, brilliantly written, while this was lazily written at best, chocked full of a complete lack of imagination.

"Drop Dead Sexy" is a pretty funny, but dark comedy. The plot: Frank and Eddie (Lee and Glover) are friends who are looking for a big score. When Frank is sent to deliver cigarettes to the evil Spider (Pruitt Taylor Vince), their truck explodes. But the plot thickens when Spider wanted them to die. Frank needs to get money fast, so when he sees that a rich young woman named Crystal (Melissa Keller) died, Frank and Eddie decide to dig up the body and blackmail the husband. They realize her death isn't all what it seems. Eddie also begins to fall in love with Crystal...

Jason Lee and Crispin Glover have good chemistry together. They make most of the jokes work. The movie does get into some themes with necrophilia, which could turn some people off. Vince plays a scary gangster, Brad Dourif (The voice of Chucky) makes a weird cameo appearance as a way too interested morgue attendant. The movie is set basically around a strip club, so there's lots of gratuitous nudity. (That's not a bad thing...) This is the time of year when Lionsgate puts a movie out that's normal not shot on digital junk like "Heebie Jeebies". See also "Creep" (2004) or "Blind Horizon" (2003) Overall, "Drop Dead Sexy" is worth seeing for the actors and somewhat unusual plot. For more insanity, please check out: comeuppancereviews.com

This movie will be great for the college market. I just attend the world premiere last night and had a great time. I normally don't laugh out loud while watching a movie unless it is Dumb and Dumber. But I found myself laughing out loud a lot. The quote that I heard the most after watching this film is "Wow, that was really funny. I didn't think it would be that funny." Jason Lee controls the laughs with his comic timing. Normally spooky Crispin Glover, offers a shockingly funny performance. Drop Dead Sexy shows what can be made on an independent budget with a great cast and good writing. Film schools teach that making an independent film like this is possible but seldom is done. I would suggest that any college student to go see this movie.