Joe's Apartment (Comedy,Fantasy,Musical)

Sex Bugs Rock 'n Roll.
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Joe comes from Iowa to New York and, being short of money, wants to find an apartment with very low rent. His quest is successful, but he must share the residence with some 50,000 cockroaches. The insects turn out to be Joe's best friends.
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I am informed that 5,000 cockroaches were used in the filming of ``Joe'sApartment.'' That depresses me, but not as much as the news that none of themwere harmed during the production. I do not like roaches, and I wonder if theyeven like themselves. Although it is said that after a nuclear holocaust theywould inherit the earth, my guess is they would still scurry out of sight evenwhen there was no one left to see them. ``Joe's Apartment'' would be a very bad comedy even without theroaches, but it would not be a disgusting one. No, wait: I take that back. Evenwithout the roaches, we would still have the subplot involving the pinkdisinfectant urinal cakes. Not everybody's cup of tea. My standards are not inflexible. There is a scene in ``Trainspotting,''another recently released movie, in which the hero dives head-first into thefilthiest toilet in Scotland, and I actually enjoyed that scene (you would haveto see the movie to understand why). But when we arrived at the tender littlescene in ``Joe's Apartment'' where the roaches were tugging at his eyelashes towake him up, I easily contained my enthusiasm. The movie is a feature-length version of a 1992 short film made forMTV by John Payson. Less is more. The idea of singing, dancing cockroach buddiescan easily be explored in all of its manifestations, I am sure, in a film muchbriefer than 80 minutes, which is how long ``Joe's Apartment'' runs,illustrating my principle that no good film is too long and no bad film is shortenough.The plot has been recycled out of many another Manhattan comedyabout the evil property developer who wants to tear down the colorful littlebrownstone and put up some architectural monstrosity. (I am sure I saw most ofthis story in ``Where the Heart Is,'' the 1990 movie about an evil propertydeveloper, etc.) The rent-controlled apartment building in this film is occupied by alittle old lady, who is tripped by hidden wires and in other ways forced out ofher flat by the nephews of the evil slumlord (played by Don Ho--yes, Don Ho).But then the hero, Joe (Jerry O'Connell) moves into the apartment, posing as herheir, and so the nephews start on him. The real tenants of the apartment aretens of thousands of cockroaches, who at first dislike Joe but eventually becomehis friend and gang up on the slumlord. I am not sure that I need to go into all of the details involvingJoe's new girlfriend Lily (Megan Ward), or how hard she works on her garden, orhow well Joe collects manure from the carriage horses of Central Park to helpher, or how her dad is a senator (played by Robert Vaughn--yes, Robert Vaughn).If you want to know how the pink scented urinal cakes come into the story, sendme a stamped, self-addressed postcard. On second thought, don't stamp it. The roaches are the real centerpiece of the movie. These are not ordinaryroaches. They sing and dance. Some people will be reminded of the singing micein "Babe," but singing mice are one thing and a roach quintet is quiteanother. The insects have obnoxious, piping little voices and sound like theChipmunks had inhaled helium. Some of the roaches are given names, but I must say none of themreally emerged as individuals for me. They were more of a large squirming mass,and when several hundred of them crawled across Joe's face, I for one was happyto be sitting in the back row, lest a fellow moviegoer be moved to hurl. Thespecial effects are very good, I suppose. You can see every detail of thecarefully articulated armor on the their little tummies, if you want to.Download here