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Thursday, January 26, 2012

Straight Talk (1992)



I was going to save Straight Talk for use in a James Woods film festival (he is, after all, this blog’s favourite unlikeable guy), but a ‘radio’ theme somehow emerged over the past few days, and it seemed to fit.

Synopsis: Busty, blonde babe broadcasts boombox bunkum.

Blurb From the VHS Jacket: “When down-on-her-luck country girl Shirlee Kenyon (Dolly Parton – STEEL MAGNOLIAS) walks through the wrong door at the right time, she accidentally becomes Chicago’s newest talk-radio celebrity and turns the Windy City’s hottest radio station upside down!”

What Did I Learn?: The best way to market relationship advice is to make it sound like Kentucky-fried, corn-pone country wisdom.


Really?: 1) Does Shirlee ever offer advice that isn’t along the lines of: “you should leave your spouse”? 2) I had a bit of trouble believing that a dance studio in an economically depressed town would actually fire an instructor who wears a 40 DD bra because she talks too much.

Rating: Straight Talk is a light-hearted, feel-good comedy that suffers from two major problems: a) I couldn't buy the film's basic premise about Dolly Parton being mistaken for a PhD pyschologist and getting her own talk radio show, and b) it’s not very funny, or well-written (although Parton and James Woods enjoy some interesting chemistry). Straight Talk isn’t a terrible movie, but I can’t recommend it. 5/10 stars.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105481/

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