Good movie but grossly overrated

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Ringmaster (1998) * (out of 4)Horrid movie about a bunch of trash going onto a television show hosted by Jerry Springer in order to air their dirty laundry. The main guests are a mother (Molly Hagan) who learns that her daughter (Jaime Pressley) is sleeping with her husband (daughter's stepdad). I'm sure there are many people who hate the original Springer show so they'd actually sit through this movie just so they could tell everyone how bad it was. That's not me because I'll admit that I used to get a kick out of watching the show when I was a teenager but having not seen an episode in ages and then revisited it via this movie, I do wonder what I was thinking. However, I'm really not going to hold this movie against the show but I think it proves that the trash on it can be tolerated in 10-minute segments but whenever you try to stretch those stories into a full feature the results can be disastrous. What really killed this movie isn't that it's trash but it's the fact that nothing fun ever happens. The entire group of characters are just boring stereotypes who do just about everything you'd expect them to do. The white trash come to L.A. to get on the show and then the mom and daughter start trying to sleep with a black man from Detroit who is on the show because he cheated on his girlfriend. His other girlfriend and lover then get mad at the white girls and so goes even more fighting. I will admit that a couple of the one-liners are good but as a whole this is just a really poor movie. The performances by Pressly and Hagan are actually good and they do bring some life to the characters but there's simply nothing there. RINGMASTER is a perfect example of a major screw-up.

We couch potatoes love the television. We may hate all of these reality shows on TV like "Survivor," "Big Brother," "The Amazing Race" and "The Bachelor," but the most realistic of television is none other than "The Jerry Springer Show." Yes, I love how it starts out with small talk, and suddenly: Chairs are thrown and broken into pieces! We see backyard wrestling-like fighting! We hear cuss words being bleeped out like crazy! No other TV show on the airwaves is like that! This stuff keeps us hooked, baby! Hooked! And if y'all think the TV version is very interesting, try watching this movie version! Seeing as how this is rated R and that this was shown in the movie theater, we can probably see (and hear) what we couldn't see on the TV version because of the endless FCC rules! So think of it as an extended, unrated episode of "The Jerry Springer Show!" And man, I wouldn't want to be in Mr. Springer's shoes right now!

I think that, deep down in the darkest, slimiest part of their heart, everyone likes Jerry Springer just a little bit. While his show is undeniably offensive and stupid, it also gives us a chance to see that, relatively speaking, most of us have it real good. When you look at the trailer park livin', dollar whiskey drinkin', incest lovin' people on the Springer show, it makes even your worst day seem like a walk in the park. Jerry is performing a public service, and we should be grateful. He ditched a political career to host the show, just for us.What we should not be grateful for in any way is the piece of garbage movie "Ringmaster". "Ringmaster" shows what life is like for people who wind up being guests on the show, or so they would like us to think. The movie follows the pre-requisite Springer story line: Love triangles. One triangle involves Connie, her daughter Angel, and her husband Rusty. The other involves Starletta, Vonda, and Demond. When the two hapless groups meet up in LA, their lives intertwine and collide head-on, all culminating in an explosive episode of the Springer show. It's like what "Short Cuts" would be if Robert Altman had had a severe crack habit."Ringmaster" is true to the show, as it is stupid and offensive from start to finish. It also makes me very glad that I don't live in the squalor it's characters do. But the movie has a problem. It's billed as a comedy, but it just isn't very funny. What laughs there are to be had are few and far between. Maybe some people watch this and laugh non-stop. If you think blow jobs and rape are funny, well then I guess you're one of those folks. Personally, I laughed two or three times and spent the rest of the movie in utter awe of the agonizing horrors of white-trash life.The Jerry Springer Show just isn't meant to make the leap from TV to the silver screen. What's funny in an hour long show (less, when you count commercials) isn't necessarily going to be funny in a ninety minute movie. Movies have to tell a story, and that's something else "Ringmaster" has trouble with. The story is threadbare. There are so many plot holes and continuity errors that any attempt at telling a cohesive narrative is quickly put asunder. And even if there weren't such problems, how much fun can you pull out of a story of stereotypical people in a stereotypical story? Even the Hollywood formula couldn't make this better. "Ringmaster: is so bad, it even screws up the best part of the Springer show: the Final Thought. Somehow, even the smartest and simplest aspect of the show wound up blowing harder than the slutty women the film is built around.The worst offender in all of this is Springer himself. He's such a bad actor that he can't even play himself convincingly. Watching Springer play Springer is sad. It's like he was going for a 'What if Woody Allen played Jerry Springer' vibe, and he failed. Miserably. He went to the trouble of producing this disaster, the least he could do is try to make it just that much better.Not that I'm saying everyone else in this movie put in an award worthy performance. Just the opposite. They all suck. Not so surprisingly, no one in this movie went on to greatness. The best any of them was did was Molly Hagan landing a job on a Nickelodeon sitcom. Apparently, Nickelodeon has no problem with hiring a woman who starred in the most vile film of the '90's to star in a children's program. It makes you wonder what kind of things the other adults on that channel have done in their pasts.Here are my Final Thoughts: What we have here is a group of people with no self respect and a man with money to burn, who have met and put their resources together to produce a film that shows how much they hate themselves and how little they think of the intelligence of their viewing audience. Should we accept people who make movies that treat us like severely brain-damaged lumps of goo? I say no. Somewhere out there, in this crazy, mixed up world, there is a perfect movie for each of us. We just have to keep looking for it. Until next time, take care of yourselves and your loved ones. And don't ever watch "Ringmaster".

The Jerry Springer show is a guilty pleasure to watch. It's one of those programs you watch to say, "thank goodness that's not me!" You're not sure whether people truly exist in the world like this (and if they do, its sad!) or whether this is all staged. Regardless, the Jerry Springer Show captured attention. This film was horrid.It's not as though the Jerry Springer Show doesn't capitalize on every stereotype there is, but in this movie it was just blatantly obvious and at times mean spirited. As if someone who had hatred for everyone got backing to do a movie and let out all of that hatred on film AND got away with it under the name and theme of the "Jerry Springer Show".Horrid.