Hard Candi, A DVD Review (!!!Spoiler Alerts!!!)

Ripped straight out of a congressman's instant message e-mail account, Hard Candi asks the very same question Dateline has been asking for about 9 months non-stop nearly 3 nights a week, namely: What happens when a spunky teenaged "it girl" crosses paths with a 30-something photographer on an inline chatting room with their computers?

Answer: A zany "blind date" that ends not with a kiss, nor with a tell, but, rather, with a eunuch doing a half gainer off his own roof. !!!Spoiler Alert!!! (It's all in the timing.) It's the ultimate romantic-comedy flick that will have you wondering if 16 really will get you 30. Or dead.

Pat Willson (The Little Kids, Remember the Alamo, American Angels) plays Jeff Clover, a happy-go-lucky man-on-the-move struggling to deal with a recent breakup with the one-the-got-away. Helen Paige (X-Man 3: The Last Dance) plays Halley "Candi" Starch, a devil-may-care, slightly goth chick with an attitude for fun and a traveling first aid kit that would make Se7ev's John Doe blush.

Directed by MVT music video guru, David Spade (Stoned Temple Pilates), it's a match practically made in heaven, or somewhere thereabouts.

They meet for coffee, light on the cream and sugar, but heavy on the flirtatiousness and repartee. And not a few double entenders. One thing leads to another, which leads to the other thing (no, not that, Pervy D. Praved), and before you know it they're back at his place listening to a bootleg tape of an emo group no one's ever heard of, or ever will, and Halley's mixing them up some Screwdrivers, heavy on the orange juice, light on the vodka. Oh, and heavy on some drug that puts Pat "a little out of it".

And before you know it, Pat wakes up to find himself, in one of the movie's more hilarious "sight gags (site gags?)", strapped to a chair with duct tape, crying. It seems our Halley has a slightly different and unusual approach to foreplay, because one thing leads to another, and Pat watches her drop his "family jewels" right down into the garbage disposal. !!!Spoiler Alert!!! Er… She stitches him up and they head topside one more time for giggles, one thing leads to another, and our Gian Carlo Gottanotesti's singing the lead counter-tenor role in Franz Joseph Handel's Magnificat.

That's right, folks. Halley takes justice, and Pat's balls, !!!Spoiler Alert!!! into her own hands vigil ante style while Pat turns his head and coughs. Up blood.

Funny, funny, funny stuff. It's not every day a guy gets to see his own "step-children" pureed into salsa (Pass the chips!) and then have to !!!Spoiler Alert!!! hang himself. Let's just hope he was hung well.

It turns out that Halley believes Pat may or may not have been involved in the disappearance of a missing girl, and she might be right because she allegedly finds pictures of her in Pat's Secret Locked Safe of Pornographic and Dirty Photographs. (Quick security tip, Pat: Don't make the combination a significant month-day-year that strangers could probably figure out after talking to you for 15 minutes; you should be castrated for being exactly that dumb.) But we never know because !!!Spoiler Alert!!! we as audience members never get to see the pictures. Still, Pat maintains his innocence to the end, claiming he just took the photos. I'm guessing those won't end up in the old high school yearbook anytime soon. But who knows? Kids today are just so… weird.

Hard Candi is a touching look at lost innocence, lost love, lost and found, and lost !!!Spoiler Alert!!! testicles. It's a real "jaw breaker" in more ways than one, and will have you reaching for your "corndog", exhaling slowly.

When it's all said and done and you're no longer a man, folks, we don't want movies like Hard Candi. We need movies like Hard Candi, if for no other reason than that it's not only the perfect "date movie" (although m'lady had best keep her "Nutcracker Suite" away from my "Goobers"); it also teaches the valuable lesson that when partying at someone else's house, always, always mix your own drinks. It cuts down on all the needless do-it-yourself-at-home elective surgery that involves your genitals, for the most part. Oh, and when it comes to sutures, always, always be closing.

[cough]