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The Gong Show Movie

Play trailer Poster for The Gong Show Movie R 1980 1h 29m Comedy Play Trailer Watchlist
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Tomatometer 3 Reviews 37% Popcornmeter 500+ Ratings
A TV host (Chuck Barris) and his girlfriend (Robin Altman) seek relief from his show and its zany would-be contestants.

Critics Reviews

View All (3) Critics Reviews
Matt Brunson Creative Loafing Following Chuck Barris around as he deals with folks clamoring to be on the show, it's less A Hard Day's Night and more a hard day's watch. Rated: 1/4 Apr 9, 2016 Full Review Rob Gonsalves Rob's Movie Vault A fascinating public act of career seppuku. Rated: B+ Nov 18, 2003 Full Review Phil Hall Film Threat A therapeutic guilty pleasure. Rated: 4/5 Nov 18, 2003 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (14) audience reviews
Audience Member Trashed by critics in its Summer 1980 release, this cultural artifact will appeal to all those that loved the Gong Show anarchy. Either you get it or you don't. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/05/23 Full Review Audience Member good comedy/thriller .. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member I saw this movie when I was twelve in the end of the year school trip, and yes is as I remember sleazy Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/15/23 Full Review Audience Member Strange, low-rent riff on Felini's 8 1/2. Yet, updating it to comment upon television and celebrity culture makes this probably more meaningful in 2011 than in 1980 when it was released. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/26/23 Full Review Audience Member Not a well-known movie...but damn funny!! Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/25/23 Full Review Audience Member Written in part by the late Robert Downey (of Greaser's Palace fame), though probably re-written a great deal by its star Chuck Barris, this pseudo-fiction mockumentary, like its namesake TV show on which it was based, was ahead of its time, paving the way for such masterpieces as the Christopher Guest-directed This Is Spinal Tap and Waiting for Guffman. Barris, creator of the Dating Game and the Gong Show practically invented crap, pseudo-reality television some two decades before crap, pseudo-reality television would overtake television. In fact, he would take the form to the limit doing just about everything one can do with the form, which simply put isn't much. Where would American Idol be without the Gong Show? I defy anyone to tell me the two shows are all that much different. At least the Gong Show had an amusing and fun way of judging, and not the self-serving patter of the latter show. The Gong Show Movie portrays an aging Barris as undergoing a nervous breakdown, trapped by the show that brought him fame, swamped by fans who treat their encounter with him as an audition. Intercut with Barris' slow and generally unfunny and self-absorbed breakdown (it was the "Me Decade" after all) are scenes cut from the actual show, which are hilarious and utterly fascinating on so many levels, but which are far too brief and cut too quickly. There's a lot of promise here, however, with some good supporting performances (including a first screen appearance by the late, great Phil Hartman), though I'm afraid the same cannot be said about Barris or his wife, who are strictly amateurs. Their on-screen sincerity is laughable. Watching Barris on-screen, though, I'm reminded of Clooney's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (featuring an incredible and spot-on performance of Barris by a real actor, Sam Rockwell) an interesting take on Barris' excellent and fascinating autobiography in which claims he was in fact a CIA contract killer and the Gong Show was his cover. No kidding. While it's hard to take Barris on his word, it's easy to understand how he could have come up with this story; it provided him with a dramatic escape from the absurdity that his life had become. This film, then, stands as an interesting middle-piece occupying the freshly absurd richness of the Gong Show and the "let's just dance" attitude of the 70s, and the coldly cynical detachment that produced both the book and film of Dangerous Mind. It's entirely of its time, a kind of Altmanesque menagerie of scenes that hang together only by the increasingly psychotic energy of its players. And it points toward the desperate "everyone's a celebrity" mentality vomited up by the mass media in their desperation to fill up the magazines and television screens and newspapers, and which now clog the internet with blogs and, dare I say it, facebook accounts. Recommended, with reservations. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Read all reviews
The Gong Show Movie

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Cast & Crew

Movie Info

Synopsis A TV host (Chuck Barris) and his girlfriend (Robin Altman) seek relief from his show and its zany would-be contestants.
Director
Chuck Barris
Screenwriter
Chuck Barris, Robert Downey Sr.
Rating
R
Genre
Comedy
Original Language
English
Release Date (Streaming)
Apr 4, 2021
Runtime
1h 29m