"A Moaning Downer"
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What You Need To Know:
This movie raises little question about the downturn of comedy in movies. Other than Sheriff Rash, there is not one person the audience can look on as being close to admirable. This spoof of a trashy town, only encourages crude joking and harsh belittling. The movie includes: a man committing adultery with a waitress, who is also fornicating with his son, a funeral home director depicted with his female lover in sadomasochistic gear, and a drunken minister. While some seasoned actors play the parts fairly well, the type of characters involved with this movie leaves much to be desired. Containing lewd, degrading talk and other strong immorality, this movie only encourages the degradation of society with bad taste and sick humor. It also includes a depiction of a drunken minister.
Content:
(AbAb, Pa, Ho, LLL, VV, SS, N, AA) Predominantly anti-biblical worldview with some pagan elements, such as characters exhibit little or no moral attributes, a tendency toward degradation, self-pleasing activities, & one element of homosexuality when one female character propositions another female character; about 31 obscenities, 14 profanities & excessive lewd, degrading language; woman dies after depicted car plunges into a river, man punches woman, woman hits man in face with a frying pan, numerous depicted ideas of man losing hand by tree shredder, chain saw, something in a pond, & woman chops it off, woman batters car with golf club numerous times, women slap men in face, man slaps woman in face, man slaps man twice in the face, man holds gun to head, & man and woman choke each other; several scenes of depicted fornication & woman commits adultery with man’s father, implied fornication between engaged couple resulting in pregnancy, female begins kissing grieving female, man gropes at female through clothes, man makes a comment about a young girl “finally being 13,” man swats woman’s behind & other lewd sexual references; no nudity but couple wears sado-masochistic regalia & women shown in lingerie; alcohol use & abuse including depiction of drunk minister; and, blackmail, lying & revenge.
More Detail:
Want to know what Jerry Springer’s guests do when they’re not appearing on the show? They’re DROWNING MONA. In this spoof of the trashier side of Americana, Danny DeVito stars as Wyatt Rash, sheriff of a small town known as a former testing ground for the Yugo automobile. When Mona Dearly, the crabby, rude & heartless woman of the town is killed after someone tampers with her car, Rash sets out to find the person who caused the foul play.
Mona Dearly (played by Bette Midler) wasn’t liked by anyone, including her husband Phil and son Jeff. As she leaves her home one morning, she tries to unlock the door to her Yugo, only to have the key break off in the lock. Frustrated, she unlocks Jeff’s Yugo, and begins driving. As she begins to round a corner, her brakes fail. This sends the car flying through the guardrail, crashing to her death in the river below. Sheriff Rash begins to investigate and discovers that everyone is relieved by, if not celebrating, Mona’s death. Meanwhile, Jeff and his partner, Bobby Calzone, continue their landscaping business. Bobby, who is engaged to the Sheriff’s daughter Ellen (Neve Campbell of the SCREAM trilogy), remembers the numerous times Mona belittled him, and Jeff’s lack of help with the business.
Phil is also overjoyed at the death of Mona, particularly because he is able to spend time with his mistress, Rona (played by Jaime Lee Curtis). When he and Jeff go to Mona’s wake, the funeral home director (who has been busy photographing a woman in a brassiere) is amused at their attempts to look sorrowful. Later, many possible suspects gather at the local bar, joking and laughing over Mona’s death. It is up to Sheriff Rash to find out who the killer is, even if Mona was mean to everyone.
DROWNING MONA raises little question about the downturn of comedy in movies. Other than Sheriff Rash, there is not one person the audience can look on as being close to admirable. A couple fornicating while engaged to be married, a man having adulterous relations with a waitress, who also happens to be fornicating with his son, a funeral home director depicted at one point with his female lover in sadomasochistic gear, and a loud, rude woman who tells everyone around her how stupid and meaningless they are. Regrettably, the humor, which is meant to be a spoof of a trashy town, only encourages crude joking and harsh belittling. While some seasoned actors play the parts fairly well, the type of characters involved with this movie leaves much to be desired.
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