Howard Stern's Private Parts

Director:Betty Thomas
Screenplay:Len Blum
Producer:Ivan Reitman
Starring:Howard Stern, Robin Quivers, Fred Norris and Mary McCormack

John's Review

Howard Stern's Private Parts is a funny film. I had no expectations when I came into this film and I ended up being very entertained. I was thoroughly surprised. Unfortunately, Howard can no longer be heard on Richmond Radio. (He was forced out of town by some local businesses, and people say there's no such thing as a Southern Mafia.

The movie is based upon the book of the same name. It's basically an autobiogrphical account of Howard's beginnings in radio and his rise to number one ratings and stardom. There's not much of a plot, but the jokes ARE very funny, and the humour runs rampant. Now we're not talking about Ace Ventura funny, more like Richard Pryor funny. The language is very harsh and the nudity took me by surprise. Not to say I didn't enjoy it, it's just I wasn't expecting it. By the way there is a large amount of nudity including a full frontal shot.

The cast is very good, of course starring the actual cast of the radio (and subsequent T.V. show) the only major person not played by herself is herself is Mary McCormack, who plays Howard's wife Allison. Everyone does a much more than adequate job, including Howard himself.

I liked this movie, and would recommedn it to any Howard Stern fan. If your not a fan I would also recommend it. I will not recommend it to anyone under the age of eighteen. There is a lot of language and a lot of nudity. But it's a funny kind of laguage and nudity.

Grade: B

Werner's Review

I am not what one would call a Howard Stern fan. I have listened to his show from time to time (when it was airing in Richmond, Virginia) and while I enjoyed some of it I also found Stern to be annoying as well. This movie was a nice change of pace from all that we hear about Howard Stern and his on-air antics. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by it.

The Plot:

This movie is based on Howard Stern's autobiography of the same name. The movie recounts Stern's rise from obscurity as he makes his way into becoming the head of shock radio. Instead of focusing solely on his on-air persona, the movie takes a behind the scene look at Stern. The movie looks at his marriage, his endless moving around from radio job to radio job, his off-air battles with the radio station managers in D.C. (where he got his real start as a shock jock) and New York, and the effects that his on-air antics would have on his life.

The Good:

The film is done is a pseudo-documenterary style which I really liked. The reason I enjoyed this style was because, like with many documentaries, the film was broken up into sections. These sections were introduced by one of Stern's on-air cohorts who would try to get people (usually scantily clad women) to hold up signs indicating which city Stern was going to next in his life. Doing this allowed the audience to keep up with Stern's past as he moved from city to city as well as allowing people to see where the various changes that were happening to Stern (both personally and professionally) were coming from.

While it is a pseudo-documentary, this film is also a comedy. When it wanted to be funny, it was "laugh out loud" tupe of funny. I was in the mood for a movie such as this and it was nice to see that Hollywood still knows how to make a comedy like this.

Another aspect of the film that I really enjoyed was the fact that the movie focused on Stern as the man behind the on-air persona rather than on the stuff that one can either hear on the radio or see on Stern's E! Entertainment Network cable show. This allowed me to truly understand and empathise with many of the problems that Stern faced as he made his way in radio by "pushing the envelope." It was interesting to see Stern, a relative nobody at the time, come into the D.C. station where he would make his name and start doing things that at the time scared his station manager and brought down the wrath of the FCC. It was also interesting to see how he and his side-kick, Robin Quivers, parted ways briefly due to a falling out that the two had. By showing us this side of Howard Stern, the movie become much more interesting to watch than if it was just a big screen version of Stern's radio show.

The best part about this movie, however, is the interactions that Stern has with his wife as she strives to understand what her husband is doing. I found the parts of the movie that dealt with his wife and home life truly interesting since they showed a side of Stern that not many people see. It is in these parts of the movie that one can truly understand that there is a difference between the radio version of Howard Stern and the family man version of Howard Stern. I left the film with a new admiration for Stern since he came across in these parts as a man that really cared about his wife and wanted her to love him as much as he loved her. I also wound up admiring Stern's wife since she was the one that had to live with a man whose life on the radio began to intrude on their life together. One can truly see that it is because of her that Stern is the man that he is today.

The Bad:

One of the more glaring drawbacks to this movie was the blatant use of nudity throughout the film, especially in scenes that did not really can for any nudity at all. Such use of nudity throughout the movie tended to be distracting as well as making this movie only fit for people who are over the age of 18. I have the impression that Stern is at fault for this since he has constantly mentioned on his radio show how much he likes seeing women nude and he must have talked the movie studio into allowing this to occur.

Another aspect of the film that I did not like was the fact that it seemed to gloss over the FCC problems that Stern had early on in his career. While I understand that these problems were highly publicized when they occurred, I would have appreciated more than a mere mentioning of them in the movie since they wound up playing an important part in Stern's radio life.

Overall:

I liked this film. It was amusing and informative at the same time. I now have a better understanding of Howard Stern than I ever had before and while some may say that this is a bad thing, after seeing this movie I would have to say that it really is not.

Grade: B
 
 

Back to Main Page