Disinfotainment Weakly -- 2 July 1998

This week we review several made-for-cable films scheduled for release soon on the Home Ballot Box Office (HBBO) premium network. As usual, they span the spectrum of entertainment values from the subslime to the absurd....

LORD OF ALLUSIONS

• STARRING Christopher Ruddy, Hillary Rodham, Bill Clinton.
• From his secure fortress, cult leader Slick (Bill Clinton) spreads his liberal gospel in Lord of Allusions
• DIRECTED BY Jive Barfer.
• HORROR NOVELIST and director Barfer's latest turn is filled with all the gross-out special effects and spooky characters that his fans depend on for a good scream. Ruddy stars as a villified investigative reporter who has a rather morbid fascination with politicians and all the horrendous deeds they do; Rodham (soon to be seen as the new Jane's Bonds girl) plays the domestic partner of a master prestilinguitationist whose career appears to have been resurrected after a gruesome political death. "I was basically doing a film noir detective movie, with The Exorcist thrown up on top of it," says Ruddy, who gets a lot thrown up on him in some of the film's scarier scenes. "It's all about dirt and blood and guts," he says. "It's very creepy."
• WHAT'S AT STAKE: A possible second term for Clinton if his character can pull one out of the hat, and the rabbit's not pregnant.

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MORAL COMBAT

• STARRING: Willie Clintong, Robert "Bob" Dole.
• DIRECTED BY James Carville.
• FROM THE ultra-successful campaign franchise that spawned such treats as the novel Primary Colors, the four-year long Moral Combat re-election campaign tour, the Moral Combat de-animated victims list, the Mortal Corpulence jogging track, and, of course, the Moral Combat national debt card, comes this $18 trillion film -- or more accurately, this $18 trillion inevitable-link-to-prison-chains. "Like Star Trek, we have parallel universes with multiple truths to work with," says director James Carville (Spew Lies). The plot revolves around an oratorical-arts tournament that takes place in a mystical market -- and the emphasis is on oratorical rather than arts. "This is the hour-and-a-half version of the thirty-second advomercial experience," says Carvill. "When you see the sequel we're working on, you're going to feel what it's like to want to knock the s--- out of somebody." (Nov. 6)
• WHAT'S AT STAKE: Whether a rhetorical spin-and-kick from the left can be successfully used in the theft of an agenda from the right.

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BIG BULLY

• STARRING: Bubba Clinton, Paula Jones, L. D. Brown.
• DIRECTED BY Betsy Wright.
• BILL CLINTON as a bully, says Wright, may be "the smallest stretch for any actor in the history of the world." Make that a reformed bully; in this family comedy, Clinton plays a gregarious career politician with a secret past as a sexual harasser nicknamed Slickster. Secret, that is, until a former victim (Jones) goes to court to defend her reputation, and the two regress into their cat-and-mouse relationship. "Paula's easy to torment," says a laughing Bubba, who admits that as a gladhanding politician, he's "enjoyed more than a few beatings." According to Wright, Clinton re-enacted past encounters with method acting: "Bill liked to get himself all worked up by visiting the secretarial pool and picking on conservatives to get ready for a scene." Bet he didn't learn that on the set of Spew Lies. (trial date to be determined)
• WHAT'S AT STAKE: Bill Clinton's civil service classification -- one-term wonder or bona fide courtroom movie-of-the-week star? "It's possible he may spend more time in a courtroom that Perry Mason," said Wright.

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MALLRATS

• STARRING Gennifer Flowers, Bill Clinton, George Stephanapolous
• MALLED TO DEATH: Flowers switches zip codes to Beverly Hills and checks out the local merchandise (Stephanapolous)
• DIRECTED BY Anita Hill.
• WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE between Hill's $27,000 art-house hit, The Clarence Thomas affair, and her $6 million Mallrats? "This one isn't a plot," says the director. Besides being funded by her honoraria and lecture fees, it also has special interest backing and real, salaried actors, including 90210 aspirant Flowers. Still, moviegoers should recognize Hills' wordy, reference-laden humor ("He said, 'what's this pubic hair doing on my Coke can?'"), not to mention its character Silent Suffering St. Anita (played by the director herself). Filmed in the District of Columbia, Mallrats follows a loafer named Willie (Clinton), who is mistaken for a would-be leader and stalked by the media before finding refuge at the mall. (Incidentally, Clinton's younger brother, Roger, plays his Bill in Hill's other academic slugfest, Waiting to Inhale.) As for Flowers, the ex-bad girl "was a dream," says Clinton. "I think everyone was waiting for us to live up to our characters's reputations. We never did, of course." (Aug. 11)
• WHAT'S AT STAKE: For Hill, a possible step toward Tarantino-dom. For Flowers, a chance to eat lunch in this town again.

DISCLAIMER:

The above are all bogus, of course. Bill and Hillary Clinton could never be actors. Why? Isn't it obvious? How can you play a part if you have no character?

Or, if you haven't gotten enough yet....