'Breast Picture' Rewards Your Laziness

Worried that your two-day St. Patty’s hangover is blossoming into a full-on lost weekend? Well, you could do worse than staying in for an early evening with everyone’s favorite houseguest: Netflix Instant. Sometimes more rough than diamond, the online movie-on-demand service is a great candidate for filling those voided weekend hours when you just can’t find the time to slip into something even approaching a pair of pants. But what to watch? Well, there are plenty of sites that already offer great advice, but may we suggest: Breast Picture.

Imagine, if you will, a down-and-out porn director, desperate to make a legitimate film. Naturally, his reputation precedes him, and the only people willing to make his dream come true are the ragtag crew members from his porno sets. So, armed with skeezy studio money earmarked for a particularly boorish production, the director finds himself secretly filming legitimate cinema…with porn stars. Not exactly ‘high brow’, but then again neither is spending an afternoon in a papasan chair eating Cool Ranch Doritos and nursing a headache.

Actually, Breast Picture is surprisingly smart for a film that deals wholeheartedly in the logistics of digitized debauchery. Rather than being overdone, the comedic moments of near-nudity serve the story well, if only to cement the idea that, well, porn stars will be porn stars. For the most part, director Bud (Joel Spence) is the frazzled ringmaster, attempting to navigate through a pool of on-set problems. Each issue and resolution is dealt with in its turn, and as the movie crosses into 60+ minute territory the silly starts to pour on. Thankfully, this dips only briefly off the radar into no-mans comedy land with a scene involving the crucial final shot, and an..ahem…adult toy that manages to log some unwanted screen time. The writing is definitely still young, but the ideas are fresh, and with an 86 minute run time the pace keeps right along, rather than dragging like so many Instant flicks you’d swear were buffering they’re progressing so slowly. Helping to round out the cast is a slew of Angeleno comedy faces, from Matt Walsh to Brian Huskey, with a cameo by Tim Meadows for good measure.

The best comedy to come out of 2010, Breast Picture is not. But it’s not exactly a slice from the Porky’s pie, either. Instead, an inventive idea by writer/director Jonathan Smith is given room to maneuver, and some genuine laughs result. There are certainly worse ways to spend your Sweatpants Sunday.