Reviews

For a Good Time, Call …

Ok, to be fair, while For a Good Time, Call … isn’t a good film, it is probably among my top-10 favorite films ever with a title ending in an ellipsis. Top-20 certainly. Just as this paragraph is my favorite in this review ending in an ellipsis …

Dreadfully sorry for that style faux pas. Can Strunk and White do a synchronized turn in their respective graves? Are they even dead? Note to self: look up those guys. Speaking of the dead, Good Time starts with Lauren (Lauren Miller) and Charlie (James Wolk) having zombie sex. She’s not naked; his patter is lame; neither seems very interested. Immediately afterwards, he breaks up their two-year relationship and tosses her out on the curb. Does this really happen? Even by cad standards, this is pretty low.

Lacking home, beau and job, Lauren takes up with Katie (Ari Graynor), a girl she hates from a college incident involving urine and a new car.  Don’t ask.  Mutual friend Jesse (Justin Long, in his best performance to date as a flamboyant gay friend to both ladies) brokers their enmity. I must say, this was big of Lauren; I probably wouldn’t have forgiven Katie’s “party foul.” Fact is, both women were desperate an yet unwilling to attach themselves to the kind of creep who feeds off desperation.  So, instead, they enhance a business while feeding off the kind of people who call up phone sex lines. Their clientele, by contrast, are definitely not creeps. Or at least Good Time claims.

Let me ask at this point: Is there still money in phone sex? I suppose there must be. But, you know, Video Killed the Radio Star, didn’t it? Isn’t the money with live chat room stuff? Come to think of it, I doubt there’s real money there, either. Ok, let me make this point – while there is almost certainly money in the enhancement of quality orgasms due to the fairly intense universal demand, I’d be very surprised if this particular outlet, so to speak, gets a significant portion of the revenue in our current age. That was diplomatic, right? Tried to be a bit diplomatic there.

Yeah, Lauren and Katie do phone sex. Lauren turns over her prudish leaf and gets with it. Katie offers that all you really have to do is ask what body part they’re thinking about and then say you’ll “lick it.” The screenplay is not without humor. The biggest problem with the sex movie here is … not enough sex. Two awkward sex scenes … no nudity … and almost all the phone chat is played for comic value. If you are a teenage boy looking for a guilty pleasure, there’s a lot more guilt than pleasure here.

I’ll roll with your premise that quality phone sex can earn $$ for a minimal amount of qualification/training. But you lose me in offering an R rated movie about sex without having a single nude scene. Ummm … seriously? Wait. Hold that thought.  Wait a sec. Got a call. What’s that? A leather jumpsuit with a “Scooby Doo” insignia. Why? What are you wearing?

Two babes with probs did whine
And decided to start a sex line
Their issues took slumber
Although my favorite number
Is still 867-5309

Rated R, 85 Minutes
D: Jamie Travis
W: Lauren Miller, Katie Anne Naylon
Genre: UnPorn
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Old maids in training
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Puritans

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