Private Parts

Isn't one iconic asshole enough these days? Shock-jock Howard Stern joins pontiff of porn Larry Flynt as the latest media-manipulating renegade to raise hackles on screen. But unlike The People vs. Larry Flynt, this adaptation of Stern's bestselling autobiography pushes no First Amendment agenda. Instead, it's Howard pushing Howard. Hard.

At the film's faltering start, the self-dubbed King of All Media insists he's no misogynist bigot; he's just misunderstood. Stern retraces with unexpected self-depreciation, and even poignancy, his raucous rise from geeky BU DJ to top radio personality. Whinnying sidekick Robin Quivers and several of Stern's misfit corps also appear comfortably as themselves. However, the prolonged autobio-pic hits its groove too late, when the FCC's most wanted re-creates his perversely funny attempts to keep station bigwigs from muzzling him. Stern exposes his Private Parts all right, but the reaction is to laugh and move on to something with a little more meat.

-- Alicia Potter