PRIVATE PARTS (56)

Directed by: Betty Thomas

Starring: Howard Stern, Mary McCormack, Paul Giamatti

The Pitch: The life of outrageous disc-jockey Howard Stern, starring himself.

Theo Sez: Someday, when people look back on the late 90s and wonder what the hell we were playing at, this shameless - but funny, and rather fascinating - piece of self-promotion will no doubt figure among the exhibits. Stern's main (perhaps only) talent seems to be for talking without inhibitions, and he's made millions off our worship of Openness - a combination of vestigial let-it-all-hang-outism left over from the 60s and a taste for deliberate exposure that's thoroughly post-modern. It's why he can play himself as he was 20 years ago as long as he cheerfully warns us that "for this movie, you have to suspend your disbelief" ; why he can glorify his iconoclastic image as long as he also admits to having a small penis and looking terminally dorky in his early days ; why we'll happily watch him exploit people for money as long as he tells us he's doing it for money - "lesbians equals ratings!" (never mind asking why lesbians equals ratings, which might involve the admission that we're not really as open as we think we are). Trouble is, it works : Stern's mischievous persona ("That's the kind of thinking that usually gets me into trouble") is ingratiating, his escapades often hilarious, and he doesn't shirk from suggesting that radio is a kind of therapy for him, or that his need to be loved verges on the pathological. A mighty con-job, but you have to admire its chutzpah ; even as you try to shake the feeling that it's predicated on your having precisely that reaction.