Such a frustrating disappointment

hyped garbage

Beautiful, moving film.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Private Parts, despite the great Paul Giamatti and Alison Janney, is one of the worst acted, unfunny movies every made.Watching it 20 years later, it simply doesn't hold up, shows what a hypocrite Howard Stern is ("I love my wife Alison") and how he is simply a scam, shock jock.

A man so hated & loathed for being outspoken, raunchy, and possessing a juvenile sense of humor (whose ultimate goal was simply this: to illicit great laughs to be had by all & good ratings to keep him on-the-air) finds plenty of opposition as he departs from his formal university education & enters into the difficult journey of achieving a successful broadcast entertainment career!Howard Stern is by far one of the most under-appreciated, overlooked, unjustly blacklisted, guilty-until-proved-innocent humans on Earth! I have listened & watched the Stern Show since the early 90's when the show was finally coming into its own, and reaching global audiences, as opposed to the 80's, when Stern nation was just barely reaching East & West Coast listeners. I realize Howard Stern's reputation & outlook on life while being a "shock jock" is too much to handle for lots of uptight victims of a sheltered upbringing; the morality hypocrites in this country - where freedom of expression/speech is often tested, ridiculed, and ultimately determined to be just a farce. This country will never outgrow CENSORSHIP. But for many of us in this intelligent, open-minded, love- laugh-live army of dedicated fans... we wouldn't want it any other way!In Private Parts, Howard Stern gives us insight into the career-long battle with the FCC, and shows us his human side where he shares his experiences of becoming a father, a husband, and a great & loyal friend to all who are deserving. Thanks to his many lifelong critics (who are just embittered fans anyway!), there may be a lot to dislike about someone who is so often misunderstood and dismissed as "an overgrown man child"... whatever opinion you may have about Howard Stern and his empire, you simply cannot deny his genius & overall success!

As a long term listener of Howard Stern I was satisfied with the adaptation of the book to the big screen. Betty Thomas was smart enough to allow Howard be himself. It works because Stern is not really acting. Having heard the actual tapes of his father berating him as a kid, seeing Richard Portnow as Ben, was dead on accurate and funny as hell. The other highlight is Paul Giamatti as the program director called pig vomit, who is hired to control Stern's free wheeling and often vulgar on air persona. At one point the self proclaimed king of all media is subjected to a lecture on the proper way of announcing wnbc with a prolonged and exaggerated W "NNNNNNNBC;" it is exactly as it happened because I actually heard the broadcast and the constant battles between Howie and the management at the now defunct radio station. Previous to the WNBC job, we see the struggle from college radio to Briarcliff, NY to Hartford, Ct. to Detroit and the last stop before the Big Apple is Washington, D.C. It is a ride filled with odd ball characters, nude women and people behaving badly, all for the ratings, and it works due to Stern's ability to communicate at the level of a regular guy. The film is well made and should be entertaining even for non listeners.

I saw a clip of this featured in one of those Channel 4 countdowns, I didn't acknowledge that the film was based on reality, so I was very keen, from director Betty Thomas (Doctor Dolittle, John Tucker Must Die). Basically, Howard Stern always wanted to be a disc jockey, working for a radio station, playing popular music and speaking his mind, and during the 1970's it was his goal to do it. Howard started out in college with not a lot of zing in his approach and hardly any personality on the Mic, but then he got his big break on a Detroit radio station. It is soon after starting out that Howard has a snap, his glasses and moustache come off, and his more vibrant and opinionated personality is brought out. He is joined on his own show with news anchor Robin Quivers, who shares his unorthodox approach to expressing his opinions, talking whatever he wants to, and doing whatever he can to get high ratings. The radio heads don't share all of Howard's ideas of what the listeners want, but his hilarious off-the-wall antics are getting the listeners, to the point where he is the most famous disc jockey on air. After a little misunderstanding between Howard and wife Alison (Mary McCormack) about her baby miscarriage, where he joked about it, and her forgiving him, Howard gains a bigger opportunity with NBC in New York. Howard also has the good fortune to have Alison pregnant again, but with his new bosses not understanding how he got such high ratings, it is only after taking him on board that they experience it. It is the job of Kenny Rushton (Paul Giamatti) and one or two other crew members to keep Howard in line, or force him to quit with the limitations of what he can do on radio, but this won't stop him. He has many troubles on and off Mic, high demands, including having Robin with him once again, and of course another hit with being the number one disc jockey again, but he also stays true to his family. Also starring Fred Norris, Gary Dell'Abate, Jackie Martling, Carol Alt as Gloria, Richard Portnow as Ben Stern, Allison Janney as Dee Dee, Jenna Jameson as Mandy, Ozzy Osbourne, Mia Farrow, David Letterman, AC-DC (including Brian Johnson, Iggy Pop and Wendy Whoppers as Big-Breasted Woman. Stern completely steals the show with his madcap radio hosting, and the real people playing their own parts keeps the momentum high. The best sequence is Stern using his voice with a stripping woman turning the bass up high on her speakers to have vibration style sex, it was number 28 on The 100 Greatest Funny Moments. A hilarious shock jock, a cast of well-knowns as themselves and in cameos, sexually explicit radio broadcasts, the story is based on facts, this is everything you wants in a biographical comedy. Very good!