Rock Me, Sexy Jesus

Yep, I just got back from seeing Hamlet 2, a very funny, not so politically correct new movie. It's still in limited release and won't open nationwide until Friday.

It's kind of a cross between Clerks, Waiting for Guffman, and To Sir With Love. A high school drama teacher gets stuck with a lot of students who don't want to be there after other electives get cut and then finds out that drama is next on the chopping block. The solution? Inspire his students to mount a production to save the drama department: Hamlet 2, in which Hamlet travels back in time to save all those who died in the original with the help of Jesus and Einstein among others.

Elisabeth Shue plays a very funny version of herself and Amy Poehler leaves you wanting to see more of her loopy ACLU lawyer character.

So why am I so lucky to see it sooner than most? Well it is set in Tucson ("Where Dreams Go To Die") although it was filmed in Albuqureque (Tucsonons will notice that it looks very different...no saguaro cactus and the mountains are all wrong.)

And it turns out that the lead character is allegedly based on a Tucson teacher. And it happens to be a Tucson teacher I know! Kevin (the real teacher) is decisively more talented than the movie version (his theater company consistently does the best homegrown productions, although I can see some of his eccentricities come through in the movie).

So I leave you with the song, Rock Me Sexy Jesus from Hamlet 2.