JANE WHITE IS SICK AND TWISTED

Produced by Leigh Slawner and David Michael Latt
Written and Directed by David Michael Latt
Edited by Richard Cunningham
Director of Photography - Jordan Levy

Jane White - Kim Little
Mom - Alley Mills
Dick - Will Wheaton
Gerry - David L. Lander
Barney - Colin Mochrie
Burger - Chris Hardwick

For a movie that is as scathing an examination of television and its mindwarping evils as you are likely to find, there sure are a good number of television stars who helped get David Latt's JANE WHITE IS SICK AND TWISTED off the ground. Talk about biting the hand that feeds...at least it's all in good comic fun.

As so many of today's children are forced to do, Jane White grows up with a television as her only friend. Jane's mother is a complete and total agoraphobic, afraid to go outside even for groceries. It's even hard for her to share any real emotional interaction with her daughter. The closest Jane has come to her father in years is seeing his face daily as the host of a Jerry Springer-like white trash interview show spotlighting gender-bending transvestite hookers and such.

While the emotional detachment of Jane's mother, played by "The Wonder Years" Alley Mills, is enough to scar any child for life, it is only the catalyst for what causes Jane to be so "sick and twisted." Reaching for any sort of emotional connection, the impressionable Jane obsesses over what it means to be a Television Family and lead that perfect Television Life. Add in Jane's daily fix of coked-out, trailer park incest from The Gerry Show, and that view of the perfect Television family starts to become skewed. Eventually it becomes okay for Theo Huxtable to sell smack to eight year olds simply because his father loves him...and this sort of thing will get her onto The Gerry Show where she can be close to the only father she knows.

And that, boy and girls, is why Jane White is so sick and twisted.

Okay, so the assessment might be a little extreme, but JANE WHITE IS SICK AND TWISTED is extreme satire, much like the writings of Voltair. It's the nature of satire to reveal social issues in a hyper-real world where the "what if" scenario is played out. While treated with a straight-forward and dead-on bluntness, the absurdity of the events and characters depicted take on frightening overtones.When Voltair suggested so long ago that humans could solve their food shortage by eating their young, and then go on to provide a strong argument for doing so, he was making a case for parental involvement that resounds just as strongly today, if not more so. With JANE WHITE, David Latt picks up where Voltair left off by pigeonholing the majority of society's woes to the boob tube.

Jane White, the character, is an enigma laid bare. Everything that makes her tick is out there for all to see, but she's still a complex creature. Filled with that Television Optimism, she possesses a cheerful naivete of the world, and when confronted with reality she takes everything at face value. The very thought of someone like this actually being able to function in the real world is staggering.

The character of Jane While is probably supposed to be older than she comes across. Kim Little plays Jane like a little girl trapped in a woman's body, and does so completely straight. Jane is all tooth-and-braces when she throws that always friendly smile. She can't figure out why guys want her, or even realize that she's wanted. Even with her daily dose of The Gerry Show, sex seems like a foreign concept to her.

With Jane's sense of reality (or lack thereof) firmly established, Latt moves the character out into the world as she follows her dream of being on The Gerry Show. This is where the real fun of the JANE WHITE starts to kick in; everyone that Jane meets turns out to be just as equally messed up as she. Apparently, television has corrupted the rest of us.

The supporting cast of JANE WHITE reads like a who's-who of television comedy. Given the chance to ham it up, everyone involved makes the most of their few minutes of screen time. Some of the actors are easily recognizable, but it's spotting the one's who aren't that provides the most enjoyment. If you want to ruin a good bit of the surprise, head to the official Jane White site and take peak at the cast list. My suggestion is catch JANE WHITE blind, you'll enjoy the movie that much more.

The Official Jane White Movie Site