Ringmaster (1998)

Shock-talk TV host Jerry Springer makes his feature-film debut in Ringmaster and is, unfortunately, the least interesting aspect of this ragtag comedy that purports to be a behind-the-scenes look at the kind of people who regularly appear on his show. To be fair, Springer doesn't have much to do except play the often-befuddled moderator. The only time he breaks loose is to defend his guests' right to air their dirty laundry on national television. But most of the juicy lines and situations are assigned to the competent cast of trailer-park denizens who pop in and out of each other's beds and then go on TV to tell everyone about it. There's a hair-pulling scene about every 10 minutes or so. But unlike the nationally televised syndicated program, there is also a great deal of real nudity and unbleeped profanity. There aren't many surprises here, but the actors are amiable and attractive and don't play down to their characters. For all its raunchiness, Ringmaster doesn't have a mean bone in its body. The DVD is formatted in widescreen. Additional features include the film's trailer, a music video, production information, and a commentary from the director, Neil Abramson. --Richard Natale Amazon.com

Holy Hell!!!

I just can't understand Jerry Springer. He is a prominent figure in left wing politics, he was even the Democratic mayor for Cincinnati. And while many liberals actually care about the financially less fortunate, Springer uses them to further inflate his already oversized bank account. Whether it be rural "white trash" or people from the ghettos and barrios, his goal appears to be selling the moral plight of the poor to an audience that views this underclass with contempt. The problem is that the lion's share of his audience is the underclass. They seem to be oblivious to the fact that Springer is not presenting his program through a TV, but through a mirror.

Movies like Ringmaster make me mad at people who say the movie studios are going to the dogs. That is an insult to that wonderful animal. Anyhow, this was nothing more than a cheap attempt to cash in on someone whose star rose way too high. Some solace can be taken because near rioting broke out in major cities from people trying to be as far away from the theaters as they could be when this turd of a film opened. Yet, the damage was done. I'm sure that some ambitious, idealistic filmaker got his/her project rejected so this crapola could get greenlighted. Hopefully the studio exec that did so got fired and found a job that suited his personality better - Such as scraping condoms off a Walmart parking lot, or selling cheap Souljah Boy ringtones at a mall kiosk. Or better yet, maybe he's going to be the jilted alcoholic Neo-Nazi lover of a lesbian midget with Irritable Bowel Syndrome on next Tuesday's episode. January 28, 2008

Explaining a Freak Show

Laura Morton is a co-author and owns a television production company. Gerald Springer earned a BA in political science from Tulane University, a law degree from Northwestern University, and became one of the country's youngest mayors in 1977 Cincinnati. He became a top-rated news anchor, then world-famous for his interview show. This book has no index. I've heard Jerry on his radio talk show; he is smarter than the character he plays on TV. You can read this book for a clue to his personality. Will he run for Senator from Ohio? I think he would be as good as Warren Harding (seriously). [If you take away the music and singing, an opera like `Carmen' is like a Jerry Springer Show.]

Chapter 1 tells about the beginning of the show. Why does anyone watch it? Strictly for laughs, or schadenfreude. Jerry shows his irreverence (p.8). Why show bigots (p.15)? His show is like an exception report (p.16) It's great fun and pays very well (p.41). While at law school Jerry took a summer job in Cincinnati at a prestigious law firm. He worked on Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign, then to lower the voting age to 19 (p.49). After he ran for Congress he was called up for active duty in the Army (p.52). In 1972 he was elected to the Cincinnati city council. He improved the transit system and lowered the fare (p.59). Jerry explains the check to that health club (pp.59-61). After this he was elected mayor of Cincinnati. Later he ran for governor, and lost. Jerry became a news anchorman during the 1980s. In 1991 his TV station assigned him to "a fluff talk show" (p.85). It started as a copy of Donahue, and then evolved based on their ratings. They would show life as is rarely seen on TV (p.101). Entertainment, not information. He doesn't pander to mainstream tastes (p.104). Jerry explains himself (p.106).

Chapter 8 explains how business works behind the scenes. Truthful stories that are outrageous are preferred (p.109). They don't pay guests except for expenses (that alone can attract thrill seekers). They don't fake shows, but can be fooled (p.110). Are their critics hypocrites (p.113)? News programs can exploit people (p.140). ["How do you feel about that?"] His co-workers get pages to tell about their work. The owners of the show want "life as it is, even if it isn't pretty" (p.189). Does Jerry really believe that entertainment is causing "kids walking into classrooms with their guns" (p.191)? Doesn't his show make weird behavior seem normal? They were allowed to do anything to attract viewers (p.203). They surpassed Oprah, the first talk show to ever do this. Is TRUTH a coincidental by-product of the news business (p.211)? "The truth is, whenever the senses are involved, what is most pleasurable or most intense isn't necessarily good" (p.241). [His personal experiences?]

Some claim that Jerry's show is a fake, they have actors on. How different would that be from most of the television that has paid performers to entertain the viewers? Can they make that stuff up? [Jerry's breakfast seems very wrong. He should eat a hearty breakfast and a light supper.] The fault of this show is to present the abnormal and outrageous as if it were just daily life. Readers of true crime know how these romantic triangles are often resolved.
July 21, 2007

Ay Ay Aye....

Another Round DVD, it plays a movie. If you're seriously interested in this movie, you're probably still using Beta Max tapes... January 15, 2007

Just a few remarks from a viewer over in Scandinavia

With 49 reviews currently in here, I don't need to go in depth on this one. I am sure that premise, synopsis etc. has been discussed at length by prior reviewers.

This movie happened on me a few days ago, as leaves on trees clouded my sattelite dish and all I could receive was national television channels in Norway (including a couple of commercial ones). I had read nothing about it, and just came across the opening titles as I zapped through the 4 sorry channels at my disposal.

It immediately caught my eye.

I watched it all the way through, promising myself at the very beginning that once this film gets boring or stupid, I'll do what I had previously intented to do, which was watch a DVD I had borrowed from a friend. At no point during the film did I feel the urge to stop watching.

Obviously, a lot of people will thrash a movie like this. It's main charachters engage in lewd, obscene and morally questionable acts all the way throughout the film. Many people will be put off by this nasty and/or downright trashy behaviour, but it resonnated with me.

I know people like this. I have at least one friend who has slept with bot mother and daughter in some backwaters place in Florida. I have at least one ex-girlfriend who has done a guy that also her mother has done. And as to this x-gf; the things she put me through, would have been solid Jerry Springer and/or Ricki Lake show, had we had those in Scandinavia. And she had similar stories with most other boyfriends she had done. I'd compare her with the trailer trash daughter in this movie without a second of hesitation. According to the eyes of the beholder, she could be either slightly more or slightly less sexy than this charachter in "Ringmaster".

After seeing it, I conferred with my Video & DVD guide, a book from 2003 (paperback). It awarded the film with a turkey symbol, and discarded it as pure and utter sleaze. Well, this particular paperback has families as target audiences, but still, that was too easy a dismissal. I couldn't quite believe that everybody would miss the point completely, and later conferred with Rottentomatoes.com. It didn't have a 0% fresh rating, as one might expect. Instead it had an 18% fresh rating. Most memorably, Roger Ebert, arguably America's (and perhaps the world's) finest movie critic, awarded it two - 2 - out of four possible stars, and provided a decent and just comment on it.

But Ebert probably never experienced people and/or conditions like these in his own life. Had he had such experiences, I believe he would have awarded it three stars.

I give it four out of five stars. I don't see how a movie like this one could have been made much more realistically. The finish is very much like that of a TV movie, but I gather that it was in wide theatrical release. I believe the TV movie finish is justifiable, as these are NOT larger-than-life charachters on display here. On the contrary, they are everyday people of the somewhat less fortunate kind, and should be portrayed as such.

This story is not earth-shattering. It is pretty much a feel-good film, and has no big central theme that is intended to be revelatory or remarkably uplifting. It is a movie that paints probably a quite fair picture of both ex-politician (mayor of Cincinnati, was he?) -turned-talk-show-host Jerry Springer, and of the knd of people who one would think constitutes a mean average of the ususal fair he and his TV show collaborators and henchmen deal with on a daily basis.

For the sake of entertainment, the charachters are to varying degrees more animated than one would expect from such a demographic, and maybe in some instances slightly less. Like Ebert states, the actors mostly do a fine job of portraying their charachters in a decent but somewhat superficial manner (this IS a comedy-drama, not pure comedy or pure parody), and no charachter is taken to the level of ridicule and/or outright parody.

We can empathize with these people - or at least we can if we have actual real life experience that compels us to believe that these people could be for real. (If one reflects upon it, an all-out-realistic and down to the nitty-gritty movie about people from these demographics, could just as well have played as Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers"; all-be-it at the opposite and most extreme end of the scale of mild-to-excessive portrayal of the denizens of trailer parks and such).

There are touching moments, such as the very plausible emptyness, lonelyness and doubts felt by the trailer park mother when she is all alone in her hotel room.

I can recommend this movie. It's not Saturday night fare or a "date movie". It's something you could watch on your laptop while on a Greyhound-bus or an interstate train. It's something to watch in your dorm room on a night that your schedule is empty, or if you're in sick from work with the flu. It won't change your life, but it'll be a whole lot more easy-going on your senses than actually watching an episode of the televised Jerry Springer show... Where the TV-show is chaotic and in-your-face, this little flick gives you enough background to actually empathize, more or less understand and possibly even believe the "guests" Springer has on his usual shows.

No small feat that. June 7, 2006

Tha White Trash Talk Show Host!

This is 1 funny-ass movie, I watched in the summer when I was watching Comedy Central, I was already a fan of Jerry Springer & his show, yet I just weared to him because all of his episode were the same, till' I saw Ring Master!!!!!

This is a tight-ass White trash movie, about a strugglin' couple that live in a Trailer Park, in somewhere in Tampa Bay, FL......where this 1 Hoe with a nice Ass pretends that her own Dad got her prgenant, and her own Mom plays along, while her Boyfriend is confused & opressed! They make it to the Jerry Springer show, where they have to take a plane from Tampa Bay, FL to Los Angeles, CA! Now, lots goes on in this movie and it is Trailer Park madness! Lots of Fyne hoochies, and plenty of Booty-tang 2! Jerry Springer-4-Life! November 6, 2005

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