POISON SCOOTER

Beer League

Artie Lange, late of Mad TV and current Howard Stern sidekick, has created that special guy film that marries dick jokes, racial humor and softball perfectly and the laughs are machine gun rapid in this bawdy, low budget affair. Prior to Beer League, Artie had cult status in some circles due to his involvement in the Norm McDonald written/Bob Saget directed Dirty Work.

Like Dirty Work, the jokes are raunchy and the guys are more or less playing versions of themselves. Lange on the Stern show is known for his doting mother, his love of Molly Hatchett and AC/DC and his proclivity to swill Jack Daniels at any hour of the day, so seeing all of these flesh out his character in the film (also named Artie) makes you wonder if this is a work of fiction or just a documentary on Artie's softball league in Red Bank, NJ.

Lange was fortunate to get names like Seymour Cassel (hilarious as the oldest member of the team) and Ralph "Karate Kid" Macchio to participate for most likely peanuts. The movie looks like it was shot in about 10 days, but the low budget nature to the film adds a sense of realism to the affair. The dueling plot lines are your typical sports movie variety, Artie's team needs to win the Championship to stay in the league and they basically suck coupled with Artie's quest to find a good girl to settle down with, she just happens to be the town whore. Although the love story is treated somewhat sweetly, the jokes are raw and borderline filthy (chicks banging black guys, botched blow jobs, herpes and the dreaded "how many men have you had sex with" are some of the topics) and may not appeal to women or gay men.

I guess as a guy, one who is slight robust in build (like Lange) and occasionally obnoxious, I was enamored with the film more than most. If you like sports movies and you think Austin Powers, American Pie and Animal House are funny, then you will probably get a kick out of this one. I laughed my ass off. And that's rare these days.

posted by Scooter @ 8:01 AM