Jamie Pressly | Through the Shattered Lens

ringmaster-poster Jerry Springer has been many things over the course of his long life. Lawyer. Anti-war activist. Adviser to Bobby Kennedy. Congressional candidate. City councilman. Brothel aficionado. Mayor. Journalist. Commentator. Talk show host. Destroyer of culture. Scourge of humanity. Twice, he was a highly recruited candidate for the U.S. Senate but, both times, it was decided that there was no way a morally questionable television personality could actually win high political office in the United States.

(Yeah, about that…)

There is one thing that Jerry Springer has never been and that is a movie star. However, that’s not for lack of trying. At the height of his talk show’s popularity, Jerry Springer starred in Ringmaster. Though he played a character named Jerry Farrelly and his show was retitled The Jerry Show, there was never any doubt that Jerry Springer was meant to be playing himself.

Who is Jerry Springer, according to Ringmaster? He’s a sad and weary man who sleeps with his guests and worries that his raunchy show will be his only legacy. After one show, he tells his staff that he will never again be elected to political office. His staff laughs but Jerry didn’t sound like he was making a joke. Why does Jerry do it? Because he cares about America! When a man in his audience starts yelling that Jerry and his guests are all going to Hell, Jerry gets in his face and let him know that his show is providing a voice for the people who live in the real America.

In Ringmaster, the real America is made up of people like trailer park nymphomaniac Angel Zorzak (Jaime Pressly) and her mother, Connie (Molly Hagan). Angel and Connie appear on The Jerry Show after Angel sleeps with her stepfather (Michael Dudikoff, the American Ninja himself) and Connie gets revenge by sleeping with Angel’s boyfriend. Also on the show is Demond (Michael Jai White), who cheated on his girlfriend with her two best friends and, the night before the show, cheats with Angel too. Thanks to the show, Demond gets his comeuppance and Angel and Connie’s relationship is repaired. The movie ends with mother and daughter back in the trailer park, talking about how their new neighbor has big feet.

Pressly and Hagan are the best thing about Ringmaster. The worst thing is undoubtedly Jerry Springer. For someone who has made a career in both politics and television, Jerry Springer turns out to be a terrible actor. He sleepwalks through the movie with a please-kill-me look on his face, keeping his head down and muttering the majority of his lines.

According to Wikipedia, Ringmaster had a budget of $20,000,000 and grossed back less than half of that. Why would people pay money to watch what they could see on TV for free? Jerry Springer never became a senator or a movie star. He continues to host his talk show and probably will until the end of time.

Oddly enough, the late 90s and early 2000s saw a lot of movies about teenagers that all had strangely generic names. She’s All That, Down To You, Drive Me Crazy, Head Over Heels, Get Over It, Bring It On … the list is endless.

And then you have the 1998 graduation party-themed Can’t Hardly Wait. Can’t Hardly Wait has such a generic name that, when you first hear it, you could be forgiven for naturally assuming that it stars Freddie Prinze, Jr. Of course, if you’ve actually seen the film, you know that it features almost everyone but Freddie Prinze, Jr. This is one of those films where even the smallest roles are played by a recognizable face. In fact, there’s so many familiar actors in this film that a good deal of them go uncredited. Jenna Elfman, Breckin Meyer, Melissa Joan Hart, Jerry O’Connell, and Amber Benson may not show up in the credits but they’re all in the film. In fact, you could argue that Melissa John Hart, playing an impossibly excited girl who is obsessed with getting everyone to sign her yearbook, and Breckin Meyer, playing an overly sensitive lead singer, provide the film with some of its comedic highlights.

(That said, perhaps the most credible cameo comes from Jerry O’Connell. He plays a former high school jock who ruefully talks about how he can’t get laid in high school. He’s so convincingly sleazy and full of self-pity that you find yourself wondering if maybe O’Connell was just playing himself. Maybe he just stumbled drunkenly onto the set one day and started talking to anyone who would listen…)

Can’t Hardly Wait takes place at one huge high school graduation party, which is actually a pretty smart idea. The best part of every teen movie is the party scene so why not make just make the entire movie about the party? Almost every member of the graduating class is at this party and we get to see all of the usual types. There’s the stoners, the jocks, the nerds, and the sarcastic kids who go to parties specifically so they can tell everyone how much they hate going to parties. Eric Balfour shows up as a hippie. Jason Segel eats a watermelon in the corner. Sara Rue’s in the kitchen, complaining about how everyone’s a sheep. Jamie Pressly drinks and assures her best friend that she’s at least as pretty as Gwynneth Paltrow. (“And you’ve got way bigger boobs!” she adds, encouragingly.) Outside, Selma Blair frowns as someone hits on her with bad line.

Of course, Mike Dexter (Peter Facinelli) and Amanda Beckett (Jennifer Love Hewitt) are the main topic of conversation at the party. For four years, Mike and Amanda were the school’s power couple but Mike decides to dump Amanda right before they graduate. Mike feels that he’s going to have a great time in college and he doesn’t need any old high school commitments holding him down. His best friends all agree to dump their girlfriends too. Mike spends the party watching, in horror, as all of his friends go back on their promise. Amanda, meanwhile, wanders around and wonders who she is now that she’s no longer Mike Dexter’s girlfriend.

Preston Meyers (Ethan Embry) struggles to work up the courage to tell Amanda that he’s had a crush on her ever since the first day he saw her. Meanwhile, Preston’s best friend — the reliably sarcastic Denise (Lauren Ambrose) — finds herself locked in an upstairs bathroom with Kenny “Special K” Fisher (Seth Green). (Needless to say, Kenny is the only person who actually calls himself “Special K.”) Kenny is obsessed with losing his virginity. Denise, meanwhile, won’t stop talking about the sweet and dorky Kenny that she knew way back in elementary school.

And then there’s William Lichtner (Charlie Korsmo). He’s spent his entire life being tormented by Mike and he specifically goes to the party looking for revenge. However, he has a few beers and quickly becomes the most popular senior at the party. He even gets a chance to bond with Mike…

Can’t Hardly Wait is a favorite of mine. It’s one of those films that doesn’t add up too much but it’s so so damn likable that it doesn’t matter. It’s full of smart and funny scenes and all the actors are incredibly likable. If you’re not rooting for Preston and Amanda by the end of the movie then you have no heart. In fact, Can’t Hardly Wait is a lot like Empire Records. They may not be much depth to it but it’s so sincere and earnest that you can forgive it.

You can even forgive the generic name.