Ding-A-Ling-Less
Picture: C
Sound: C+ Extras: C Film: C
Onur Tukel is an eccentric writer/director and his
one-joke 2004 feature Ding-A-Ling-Less about a man who was not born with
a complete manhood is a silly thing to attempt to begin with, but this is so
obvious as to put one to sleep.
Castration anxiety barely enters into play in this lame work that feels
like a very, very overly extended skit from the vintage Saturday Night Live
of the 1970s. Sadly, it is nowhere as
clever.
With a main character named Jack Peterson, you know the
single-entendres will be flying in a way that might spawn a Village People
revival. Unfortunately, the characters
are less developed than his male member and the 81 minutes feels like 381
minutes. I guess that reflects the
bored nature of the character, but even an endorsement by director David Gordon
Green cannot change my mind. He
directed Undertow, All The Real Girls, and George Washington,
all of which are far and above this film.
The letterboxed 1.85 X 1 image is shockingly poor,
rivaling the film’s content. That this
got shot on 35mm is terrible. That the
transfer is this bad, like the final film, shows they should have shot this on
an old Beta camcorder and saved the film for Green’s next project. Video Black is poor, detail is lacking and
that made this additionally painful to sit through. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo does not even have Pro Logic
surrounds, so what were they thinking in terms of budget and what does it say
that this is the best thing about the DVD?
The extras only prolong the torture, including deleted scenes that are
as dull as anything in the feature, storyboard comparison to film scenes (as if
that helped), text notes on production, trailers for four other Koch DVD titles
(including more terrible-looking works from Tukel), stills and (believe it or
not) a commentary by Tukel that shows how many miles away from good filmmaking
he really is. This will not even reach
cult status. See it at your own risk.
- Nicholas Sheffo
