Up In Flames (1978)

63% (7 / 5)

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Description: Unofficially based on the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Mr. Natural underground comics. Unable to pay rent, the brothers become victims of various sex encounters, including one with the landlady who still demands the rent.
Scene Breakdowns
Scene 1. black girl, Roseanne Farrow, John Seeman
Scene 2. Heather Young, Richard Mailer
Scene 3. Erica Havens, Harry Lewis
Scene 4. Brenda Filbrick, Heather Young
Scene 5. Brenda Filbrick, John Seeman
Review:
Its title suggests a Cheech & Chong comedy, but the porno Up in Flames makes that duo's movies look like Merchant Ivory productions in comparison. It's a lesson in how difficult it is for untalented people to do comedy.
Stolen from the underground comics, this farrago toplines its erstwhile director John Seeman as an 80-year-old huckster calling himself Mr. Natural, who is proud of having conquered syphilis by using his home remedies. The Freak Brothers and Fat Freddie (who isn't fat at all) have non-adventures trying to raise rent money and go to bed with any woman who'll have them, while the drug "jokes" are improvised and merely silly. Released on Something Weird's Dragon Art Series, Vol. 9, this one does not live up in the slightest to the hilarity promised by the shill who wrote the video's liner notes.
The sets are consistently ugly and so is the cast, with routine sex delivered between the one-liners. None of it is creative or diverting in the slightest, and among the more cryptic elements is a constant demand throughout of "be back here by sundown" or "have the money ready by sundown", as if the cast had been suddenly stricken with an idee fixee. Put simply, Dustin Hoffman as Rain Man has an IQ at least 10 times that of these disgusting characters.
The only bit of improvised dialog that rings true is a frequent mention of "fronting", allowing one to infer that the untalented porn players had some affiliation with the drug trade on the side. Even before Robert Altman made it famous, they do a lot of overlapping dialog here, unintentionally. Soundtrack is poorly chosen, with only an unpaid for playing of the hit single "Truckin'" making any impression.

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