Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Marci X (2003) - Benjamin slips with awfully scripted class comedy

10/20/2020

Marci X (2003) - Benjamin slips with awfully scripted class comedy

♥

+ Career-Killer of the Year: Richard Benjamin

The star duo attempt to lock your interest down on this poster for Richard Benjamin's Marci X

A white, Jewish socialite's father incurs serious health problems, as a hiphop act causes a crisis for his record company, so said daughter Marci rolls in to handle the situation.

Marci X si written by Paul Rudnick (Jeffrey (1995)) and directed by Richard Benjamin (My Favorite Year (1982)).

Opposites meet in this hard-to-categorize film, which angered many somewhat overly serious critics back in the day, probably because it dares to both lampoon overclass whites and black working class culture (namely hiphop). It does so in a childish manner, which feels as if the script must have been written in 1990.

Lisa Kudrow (The Other Woman (2009)) is fun nonetheless, and the same goes for Jane Krakowski (Open Season (2006)) and Christine Baranski (Happy Family (2003-04)) in particular here as a right-wing virago judge. Damon Wayans (Goosed (1999)) is less fun, but he is embarrassing from time to time in Marci X.

The film in general is a bit embarrassing; the plot is completely grotesque, its structure totally checked out. What on earth were they thinking, one wonders often during Marci X, and where does this idea come from? It fully ignores good taste and common practice, doing so with an at time Mel Brooksian comedic enthusiasm. Marci X is a pretty funny really bad movie.

Richard Benjamin: 2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

City Heat (1984) - Eastwood and Reynolds wrestle dispassionately in Benjamin's messy period affair

Watch a short clip from the film here

Cost: 20 mil. $

Box office: 1.6 mil. $

= Box office disaster (returned 0.08 times its cost)

[Marci X was released 22 August (USA) and runs 84 minutes. Shooting took place in New York. The film opened #17 to a 872k $ first weekend in 1,200 theaters in North America, where it only decreased from there, grossing 98.4 % of the film's listed gross at Box Office Mojo, with the remainder coming from 26k $ made in South Africa. Benjamin has directed two TV movies since, but never again a theatrical feature. Kudrow returned in Wonderland (2003); Wayans in Luther Vandross: Dance with My Father (2003, music video), My Wife and Kids (2001-05) and theatrically in Behind the Smile (2006). Marci X is rotten at 8 % with a 3.48/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Marci X?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

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Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

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Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

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Philip Baker Hall has died

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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10/20/2020

Marci X (2003) - Benjamin slips with awfully scripted class comedy

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