Private Parts

* My favorite IMDB user reviews about Private Parts:

What can I say? A great story, very well told. - 16 December 2006
I was astonished.

I just wanted to see a couple of emerging fave actors work, so I rented this, 9 years after it came out.

I was completely surprised. Stern is a fantastic film actor.

I guess this is a testimony to the power of fine production. I was expecting to have to wallow through an indulgent ego-fest. I wound up being moved. Good acting, good story, good production, a lot of soul.

It's also a little bit of a nostalgia rush for the boomers.

If you like a rockem-sockem cavalcade of wild humor and delightful conflict, check it out.

Don't really like the guy but love the movie. - 6 May 2002
The ratings that I see on Private Parts really do the movie an injustice. As of now I see the ratings are at 6.5, but I have to tell you that I'd give it a 9.

Stern is not GLORIFYING himself here. He's just telling a story as to how he got to where he is and in many cases criticizes himself. The movie is by no means egotistical which is what I TOTALLY expected to find. Instead it leads you through a tale of Poverty to Success.

Great Job Howard. I may not like you much, but you really pulled this one off.

This could have been so bad: instead, it's a masterpiece - 24 January 2007
I SO enjoyed this movie.

I watched this movie without realizing until close to the end that Howard Stern was playing himself.

I was a radio announcer myself, during the period when Stern got going. This movie has the 'feel' of reality to it. I recognized so many of the people I worked with in this movie. Every radio station has some of them. The studios of the period were just like this.

Of course, this movie was severely compressed in time and space. Radio is like warfare: lengthy periods of utter boredom punctuated by periods of pure panic. We don't need to see the slow bits. Each hour of on-air radio presentation requires something like three hours of preparation: we don't see the hard work that goes into such a show.

We do see a very funny and entertaining movie. Don't forget, I was in the industry at the time this all happened: and this one feels 'real' to me.

Many autobiographical pieces by "stars" turn into awful sycophantic schmaltz-fests. This one didn't. It could have been awful. Most of this kind are. This one... is excellent.

And if you've never worked in broadcasting -- it's still very funny!

Marvelous feature with shockingly original screenplay and approach - 12 August 2001
I detest Howard Stern and viewed this film under protest. Surprisingly, I found it to be my favorite American film in some time.

Whilst the movie is based upon biographical material and many of the principal characters play themselves, director Betty Thomas does a marvelous job of creating a fresh feel of taking us behind the scenes. Equally surprising is that Stern allows his warts and ego to be on full display. Private Parts, in its own way, is a far more trenchant essay on the state of the American entertainment industry than The Player or Network.

Surprisingly engaging love story! - 18 December 2004
I should first confess that I find Howard Stern's radio and TV shows to be redundant, banal and permanently locked in male adolescence. Having been a male adolescent at one point in my life, I can tell you with authority that it's the stupidest part of any man's life, by far.

And yet, I found Private Parts to be a surprisingly uplifting and touching love story, and in some parts, extremely funny -- even clever. It's a well-made story of a young man trying to find his way in the world, supported by a loving wife who stands by him, no matter what.

Some have said that this film contains a lot of inaccurate information about who did what when -- forget all that, and just watch the movie as a story. It's a shame that Howard Stern's real life isn't *exactly* like this film's plot -- but anyone with more than a half-functioning adolescent brain knew that before they walked into the film, didn't they? It's a movie, folks, not a documentary.

There are some great scenes in this movie -- this was the first film in which I got to see Paul Giamatti act, and he's perfect. Howard Stern and his sidekicks all acquit themselves well as actors, although I can't imagine any of them ever playing any role other than themselves.

Bottom line: this is a fun and surprisingly touching movie.

Stern is good - 9 April 2012
As a long term listener of Howard Stern I was satisfied with the adaptation of the book to the big screen. Betty Thomas was smart enough to allow Howard be himself. It works because Stern is not really acting. Having heard the actual tapes of his father berating him as a kid, seeing Richard Portnow as Ben, was dead on accurate and funny as hell.

The other highlight is Paul Giamatti as the program director called pig vomit, who is hired to control Stern's free wheeling and often vulgar on air persona. At one point the self proclaimed king of all media is subjected to a lecture on the proper way of announcing wnbc with a prolonged and exaggerated W "NNNNNNNBC;" it is exactly as it happened because I actually heard the broadcast and the constant battles between Howie and the management at the now defunct radio station.

Previous to the WNBC job, we see the struggle from college radio to Briarcliff, NY to Hartford, Ct. to Detroit and the last stop before the Big Apple is Washington, D.C. It is a ride filled with odd ball characters, nude women and people behaving badly, all for the ratings, and it works due to Stern's ability to communicate at the level of a regular guy. The film is well made and should be entertaining even for non listeners.

Terrific and very funny biopic - 7 September 2010
Howard Stern has only ever been a vaguely familiar figure here in the UK. When Private Parts first came out I knew who he was and had seen a short segment about him on TV. My opinion of him was not good. From the small amount of information I had, he seemed like a completely unlikeable malicious idiot with an annoying haircut. So I certainly had some preconceptions about the man before seeing this film. After seeing it, I had to admit that, like most things in life, the truth is much more complex. In actual fact I came away from Private Parts liking and respecting Mr Stern quite a bit. Quite a turn-around.

Sometimes with a biopic it's good to have very little knowledge of the subject. The trajectory of the story is then more surprising to you. This was true for me with Private Parts, as I had no real clue about Howard Stern's rise to fame. However, what surprised me the most was Stern's character. He was not afraid to paint himself as pathetic, and the honesty of this approach is the key to why it's such a compelling film. Some people have commented that this movie is self-serving and that Stern portrays himself as some kind of misunderstood innocent. While I can't definitively say if this is true or not, my gut feeling is that he depicts himself in a fairly honest way. Many times he shows himself to be seriously uncool and pathetic. And because his whole shtick is about not holding back and saying what he thinks, you can't help but feel that this ethos must apply to the movie too, and this is most probably what he is like.

The film is often very funny, and I can't really often say this for most comedies. It mixes standard biopic drama with some inventive comedy moments that recall the style of Woody Allen; although an admittedly lower-brow Woody Allen with a fair smattering of naked women. But still, it's in that general ball-park. Stern is very good as, well, Stern. I think it's quite a reasonable achievement to be fair as it's actually not always that easy playing yourself. Take a look at a few of the cameo appearances in some of the episodes of Extras for proof of this bizarre truth. Anyway, he is a compelling central character, whose underlying personality seems to be very decent. Paul Giamatti is the other actor who stands out. His portrayal of Pig Vomit is hilarious.

This is a great comic biopic. You certainly do not need to be familiar with its lead character to enjoy it, as it's a very well delivered and funny story. The humour never feels forced either, it just flows into the narrative. I am surprised I like Private Parts so much. It really changed my view of Howard Stern. Except I still think he has an annoying haircut.

My favorite trivia about Private Parts:

* Julia Louis-Dreyfus was originally cast as Alison, but backed out to spend time with her family.

* Jeff Goldblum was originally considered to play Howard.

* The character of Kenny 'Pig Vomit' Rushton is based on Kevin Metheny, the WNBC radio program director at the time. In real life, Howard called him 'Pig Virus', not 'Pig Vomit'. Pig Vomit was the name of the group that did Howard's opening theme song for his radio show at the time.

* Philip Seymour Hoffman was considered for the role of Kenny 'Pig Vomit' Rushton.

* Mary McCormack originally did not want accept the role of Alison because of Stern's controversial reputation. She accepted the chance to audition only because she wanted to meet director Betty Thomas. When McCormack told Thomas that she was refusing the role, Thomas encouraged McCormack to listen to Stern's radio show and meet him in person. McCormack became a fan of the show and accepted the role.

* According to Howard Stern, he at first believed that he would be able to improvise throughout the movie as he does on his radio show and did not memorize his lines. Producer Ivan Reitman had to pull Stern aside and explained to him that he needed to learn his lines as scripted.

* Howard Stern, Robin Quivers, and Fred Norris were still doing their morning radio show five days a week during production on the film. Every morning, they would go immediately to the set after the show.

* If there is one downer about watching Private Parts, it is the knowledge that Howard and his wife Alison split up about ten years later. It is kind of tough to watch it as a love story when you know things eventually didn't work out between them and they got divorced. Oh well. It is still a good love story.