Filth and Wisdom (2008)

User Rating:

5.0/10   

Director:

Madonna

Writers:

Madonna (creator) and
Madonna (script) ...

Release Date:

17 September 2008 (France)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Music | Romance

Plot:

A comedy centered on three flatmates living desperate lives in London.

Plot Keywords:

Book Writer | Cultural Revolution | Gypsy | Lap Dancing | Dominatrix

Cast

Ade	...	DJ
Gogol Bordello	...	Themselves (also archive footage)
Olegar Fedoro	...	A.K.'s Father
Stephen Graham	...	Harry Beechman
Richard E. Grant	...	Professor Flynn
Eugene Hutz	...	A.K.
Shobu Kapoor	...	Sardeep's Wife
George Keeler	...	Frail Man
Rhiann Keys	...	Ballet Dancer
Francesca Kingdon	...	Francine
Elliot Levey	...	Benjamin Goldfarb
Inder Manocha	...	Sardeep
Vicky McClure	...	Juliette
Tim Wallers	...	Mr. Frisk
Hannah Walters	...	Mrs. Goldfarb
Holly Weston	...	Holly
Clare Wilkie	...	Chloe

Runtime:

UK:81 min (PAL Version)

Country:

UK

Language:

English | Russian | Hindi

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Japan:PG-12 | USA:Unrated | Sweden:15 | Portugal:M/16

Filming Locations:

London, England, UK

Company:

Semtex Films

Quotes:

A.K.: When I die, I'm going to go straight to Heaven. And you are going to ask me why. Did I pray enough, no. did I share enough? Not really. Was I humble enough, definantly not. So what makes you so sure you're going straight to Heaven you ask. And I will tell you, because, I told the truth.

Movie Connections:

References Mary Poppins (1964)

Witless, pretentious, bowel brained

Jesus wept. I wish that was all I could say about this blundering, self-indulgent idiot of a movie. I am still reeling from the public humiliation meted out to Eugene Hutz and Richard E Grant in this, as another commenter so aptly described it, car-crash of a movie.

The script they were handed and the movie they ended up embroiled in was the equivalent of them being packed into a bright pink Lada, tweaked up to the gills on meth and viagra, naked, before being forcibly driven at top speed into an oncoming bus-load of school children, with a haul of child porn sitting conspicuously on the back seat.

Madonna's unmistakable, drooling brand of pretentiousness is smeared all over this particular steaming pile of waste. Although pretentiousness might be a bit generous, as that would suggest at least an entry level modicum of intellect with which she had to work with; this is unadulterated idiocy.

Watching this movie I was constantly reminded of that scene from A Fish Called Wanda where Klein, after being accused of being stupid, responds indignantly 'Do stupid people read Russian philosophy?'. Curtis' answer kept running laps around my attention span: 'Yes, they do, they just don't understand it.' This sums up the driving force behind the pretentious, empty-headed fumbles this movie attempts to make in an effort to inject it with some kind of profundity, the like of which will no doubt appeal to people who have never experimented with thinking before, but alas will leave anybody who can spell the word 'wheelbarrow' without spell check smacking their heads off the nearest hard surface with contempt for the foolishness being hurled in steaming handfuls at their functioning brains.

They spray-painted Richard E Grant's hair gray for crying out loud. Not content with humiliating the man through the woeful string of drivel that was disingenuously entitled a script, they physically marked the man's person to make him look as foolish as the movie itself. There should be some kind of association for prevention of cruelty to actors set up if you ask me, Madonna would surely get the chair for what she did to Hutz and Grant. For shame...

I've given this movie 1 point because I like Hutz and Grant, 1 point because I like Gogol Bordello who provide much of the music and style evident in the movie, and I would give it another point for the car-crash quality that kept me glued to it in disbelief, reveling perversely in how progressively terrible it kept getting by the second.

It's that kind of morbid fascination you get if you smell a really bad fart, disgusting, repulsive, but morbidly fascinating that it can actually be that bad and actually be getting more repellent. But since there are clearly people commenting here who insist on over-rating this nonsense, waste-of-time testament to Madonna's failed education, I will withhold that third point.

If you like Grant or Hutz, avoid this movie at all costs; it's like watching them ritually humiliated by an idiot in the crudest and most unfortunate of fashions for a length of time that could qualify for a human rights violation. You will weep for them. I wouldn't be surprised if Guy Richie decided to distance himself from his missus on the strength of having seen this movie alone.