From conception to birth, from death to eternity, life is explored through its many meanings. This series of vignettes attacks convention from the Catholic stance on birth control (which leads to a huge musical number straight out of "Oliver!"), the grotesque presence of an enormously fat man who can't hold down his dinner(s) in an elegant restaurant, the accidental poisoning of dinner guests at a country dinner party, and the entrance into heaven where every day is Christmas. These are for me the highlights, other segments on child birth and a man being executed having his choice of methods and choosing being chased by topless buxom women, not being so funny. It starts off with a prelude with tired bookkeepers taking over their office building and turning into pirates; Slightly amusing, but no classic.
But when a pregnant woman drops her baby out simply while doing dishes and her husband tells their many children that they are being sold into slavery, the offbeat and deliciously bad taste begins with his breaking into "Every Sperm is Sacred", spoofing the big musical numbers in the 1968 Best Picture "Oliver!". "God looks down on those who treat their semen with more care" is one of the lyrics, and you know that the film is not going to be sensitive to those overrated politically correct standards. If you have a queasy stomach, you might want to turn away when the fat man enters the restaurant because this is not an easy sequence to take. You'll thank God that the film was not filmed in "Smell-o-Vision" in this sequence.
Then there's the delightfully droll sequence of death visiting the country home of a dotty housewife who served her guests canned salmon moose resulting in all of their deaths including one guest who didn't EAT the salmon. This is one of those bits of comedy that when you watch it over and over, you'll start quoting the movie line for line. Their deaths are quick and painless and they head into heaven in their own automobiles where all the characters from the past (including those who didn't die in earlier sequences and were played by some of the same actors) greet them. It wraps up this well saturated cherry of a sweet little slap into the face of life very nicely, and even if on video, you find yourself fast-forwarding through some of the weaker segments, there will be enough to keep this in your cineramic comedy memory.
But when a pregnant woman drops her baby out simply while doing dishes and her husband tells their many children that they are being sold into slavery, the offbeat and deliciously bad taste begins with his breaking into "Every Sperm is Sacred", spoofing the big musical numbers in the 1968 Best Picture "Oliver!". "God looks down on those who treat their semen with more care" is one of the lyrics, and you know that the film is not going to be sensitive to those overrated politically correct standards. If you have a queasy stomach, you might want to turn away when the fat man enters the restaurant because this is not an easy sequence to take. You'll thank God that the film was not filmed in "Smell-o-Vision" in this sequence.
Then there's the delightfully droll sequence of death visiting the country home of a dotty housewife who served her guests canned salmon moose resulting in all of their deaths including one guest who didn't EAT the salmon. This is one of those bits of comedy that when you watch it over and over, you'll start quoting the movie line for line. Their deaths are quick and painless and they head into heaven in their own automobiles where all the characters from the past (including those who didn't die in earlier sequences and were played by some of the same actors) greet them. It wraps up this well saturated cherry of a sweet little slap into the face of life very nicely, and even if on video, you find yourself fast-forwarding through some of the weaker segments, there will be enough to keep this in your cineramic comedy memory.