Take Me Like Wow

The cliché goes (according to Steve Martin) that "comedy isn't pretty", and I guess that goes double for hardcore porn comedy. TAKE ME LIKE WOW tries way too hard, and fails.

The gimmick might make for a hit mainstream movie, now that "gross-out" has become as natural to Hollywood moguls as "grosses" used to be. But in the hand of untalented pornographers, this tale of a 28-year-old virgin femme CPA named Virginia in search of sex is pretty embarrassing.

Rose-bud Bush, the lead actress, throws herself into this plum role and becomes frankly annoying after chewing up the scenery for nearly an hour. Imagine porn star Terri Hall but with a flat chest and you can visualize her appearance. I was surprised to see the performer overacting again (as a Jewish American Princess) in the final segment of another SWV revival, FIRST TIME FRENZY. If porn were eligible for Razzies she'd be two for two.

I guess she could (maybe did) make a living as a performance artist, sort of a Penny Arcade who goes all the way. But ad libbing mindless drivel, pulling faces, doing pratfalls often in the nude, and generally carrying on in a fashion that makes the Jerry Lewis/Sammy Petrillo/Jim Carrey breed of performers look subtle by comparison wore me out long before this garbage concluded.

A description of her character's arc is worthwhile, because it is so silly. Film opens with her arguing with an accounting client, finally cursing the guy, which causes two female demons in diaphanous red negligees to appear and have sex with the slob. When they're done giving the guy a blow job, they point their fingers at him causing him to disappear, cueing some lesbian sex. All the while Virginia watches entranced, sucking on a pencil (hey, she's a CPA after all!).

Back home after her boss gives her time off, she complains about her virginity to her handsome male neighbor (hint, hint re: film's unsurprising conclusion), and plans to go out on a big date with a business colleague. She seduces the mustachioed date and we watch Virginia go through a series of explicit sexual positions with him, but guess what -it was all her fantasy. Dissolving back to reality, the guy excuses himself with a "you're too nice a girl" parting shot, and she's still a virgin.

She visits a buxom femme psychologist who claims Virginia's sexual problems are all the result of "improper toilet training". The shrink demonstrates vibrator action but the intended yocks fall flat.

Virginia answers a classified ad to appear in adult films with "no experience necessary" and shows up at a sleazy porn producer's house. The ensuing scene is a make or break one for the audience -either one will be amused or as in my case, groan out loud. The 2-bit magnate insists she audition, not the sex but the "acting" side of the biz; pretending to be a cabbage "in love with rock star Elton Parsley" (!), and then play a chicken dyed red, white & blue for the bicentennial. Her antics at these acting class satires are truly awful.

Pressed into service as an instant porn actress Virginia is outfitted with a stupid looking silver costume and passes the time schmoozing with a black stud named Jonathan (Jonathan Younger, a journeyman porn performer). She watches him (and makes grotesque faces as "reactions") do an interracial scene and when the director yells "orgy time", takes her opportunity to join in. But the porn thesps don't want her, pushing her away in awkward slapstick.

A clapper board is inserted reading: Scene 12D Take 20 (pretty wishful thinking on a 1-take wonder like this baby) and she's left still a virgin. John Seeman is just an extra in this orgy sequence.

Back home there's a lame spoof of the '60s romantic cliché of lovers rushing to clinch each other across a field, and she finally achieves her goal with neighbor guy. You'd have to be brain-dead not to see that coming.

Though there are snatches of comical music, this dumb film is scored mainly to jazz fusion tracks stolen from 1970 recordings by Miles Davis in his "Bitches Brew" sessions and Donald Byrd in his "Electric Byrd" phase. That annoyed me no end, since it had no place in this would-be "comedy".