STANDING ON FISHES

It is only mid-January and we already have a strong candidate for the 2007 Schiavo Award presented annually by Needtovent.com to the most brain dead movie of the year.

STANDING ON FISHES is so inherently bad even the Law Firm of James Sokolove can't defend it. Starting with a script thinner than a Republican's lips, this self-indulgent vanity piece is about as well-executed as an Iraqi hanging thanks to the universally shoddy production values throughout.

Starring Meredith Scott Lynn (who also directed and produced) and Bradford Tatum (credited with co-directing and writing the contrived, progressively verbose and irritating screenplay), the film was completed in 1999, finally picked up for limited distribution in 2003, released the following year and was just now discovered under a pile of dust on the shelf of a local Blockbuster. It was no surprise that STANDING ON FISHES is bad, but being this bad abuses the privilege.

Joining the two self-absorbed leads are Jason Priestley, Lauren Fox, Pamela Reed and Kelsey Grammer.

Tatum plays a serious sculpter who has taken on the assignment of crafting a rubber pussy for a film being directed by Grammer. Apparently Sharon Stone wasn't available, and so Grammer needs this devilish device since the actress he's directing won't flash her flesh. Lynn is Tatum's high-strung, petulant girlfriend from Hell (the San Fernando Valley actually -- pretty much one and the same) who finds the plastic prosthesis disgusting. In fact, Lynn finds just about everything disgusting. Her incessant complaining makes the average KB Home buyer seem docile.

Here's where Man Law should have taken over -- no scrawny, skinny assed harpy with tits that look like fried eggs has the right to be high maintenance. End of story.

The one supposedly memorable comedic scene finds Kelsey Grammer brazenly sniffing the fake twat in an exclusive restaurant. We say: "Snot funny, McGee!" We wonder what Lilith would say...