THE JOE SHOW (2014)

The Joe Show (2014)

Synopsis: Trapped in a world he never made up, Joe struggles to find a job or even a meaningful relationship with anyone outside of his imaginary pal, Charlie Nubbins. The only place Joe feels at home is on stage during a local poetry night attended by beautiful women, women who end up missing after each one of his shows. (IMDB)

Have you ever seen the TV show Louie? Well take out the comedy (or replace it with poetry), add in a more pathetic main character, and had some missing people. Now make it a full length movie and you have The Joe Show.

The Joe Show is made, for the most part, in the same style that Louie is. It is constantly switching from whatever is happening in his life to his open mic poetry readings. The poetry part I don't understand at all. I know that poems don't have to rhyme but his basically up there telling stories. There is nothing poetic about majority of his “stand ups.” But if they want to say it's poetry and that's his escape, who am I to dispute it. However, his poetry sessions probably make up about 70% of the movie.

When the movie isn't centering on poetry, it's showing clips from his life. The clips aren't really telling much of a story. The first clip for example is him waking up and brushing his teeth... and that's it. There is a clip of him on a job interview, a clip of him watching TV with his dad, a clip of him playing chess with his nosy neighbor, etc... The sequence with him and his imaginary friend, Charlie, was just confusing. He is having a conversation with a man who is sitting on a couch drinking. He asks Charlie how to deal with loneliness. Charlie's blunt and straight forward response is that he “spent so much time sucking cock that he was never lonely.” But than he went on to add that that was a sin so Joe shouldn't do it. And that was basically the end of the conversation. Like I said, confusing.

Now the other aspect of the synopsis is the girls that go missing from the open mic poetry nights. Some of his stand up sessions involve a random girl in the crowd who is touched by his poetry. At some point, that girl also gets on stage to read and Joe start fantasizing about them reading their poetry in lingerie. The first girl we are introduced to only appears once. The next clip of Joe's life is him sitting in a chair watching the news as a missing persons report comes on. That missing girl is the one from the club the night before. According to the news report, this is the second girl to go missing. We are led to believe that Joe is responsible for their disappearances. How it is physically possible is beyond me as both girls were abducted at night from their houses while the still lived with their parents. Now Joe is a clumsy, out of shape, well over 300 pound man with the Tony Soprano heavy breathing from walking syndrome. I don't see him sneaking into anyone's house and abducting someone without waking everyone else in that house. But maybe that's just me and I over think things. Again, we were only led to believe that Joe was responsible. There was no interaction or any other clear signs that it was definitely him. The third victim however, gives a little bit more on an insight. The first time she is introduced, she actually stays after the poetry reading to talk to Joe and tell him how moved she was by his poetry. He gives her a very creepy response, immediately apologizes for it and leaves. She clearly wasn't smart enough to take that response as a warning sign. She gets Joe's address from someone at the club and pays him a visit, again to say how moved she was by his poetry. This time she is seen by the nosy neighbor, who also comes off very creepy so she leaves. So than envisions her reading poetry in lingerie and the very next scene is the chess scene with the neighbor where said neighbor tells Joe that the same woman he saw at her door is now the third woman missing. Although, the neighbor doesn't seem to care and actually laughs it off.

Now unfortunately, I can't give a full review on this because the screener I was provided for this review continually froze at the same part. While this movie to nothing to really hold my attention, I had dedicated an hour and fifteen minutes to the film so I wish I knew how the final half hour was. The way the movie built up, I don't really envision it having a very entertaining ending but there are a few questions that I can't answer. Did Charlie show up again? Is Joe really the one taking these girls? If so, is he killing them? Or the extremely farfetched, was this whole movie just something happening in the mind of one very pathetic man? These are questions I will never know the answer to, and I don't see many people sitting through this whole movie, or watching it at all for that matter, to find out the answer for themselves.

                
          

reviewed by Bobby