NEW YORK - DECEMBER 03: Actor Randy Quaid poses at the Museum Of The Moving Image Salute to Will Smith at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel December 3, 2006 in New York City.
Evan Agostini/Getty ImagesTORONTO – Evi Quaid gave full warning before her indie docu-drama Star Whackers debuted in Vancouver Saturday night that it was an unfinished version.
“This is a work in progress and highly experimental with nudity, adult language & content through out. For the first time I would like an audience reaction to my art as a work in progress, so I may understand its content through other eyes,” Evi Quaid said in a statement that preceded the Rio Theatre screening.
If anything, the Evi Quaid and her husband, Randy Quaid, welcomed criticism as they scheduled a Q&A post-screening.
They got criticism, alright.
Vancouver Sun film critic Peter Bernie on Saturday declared Star Whackers, and Randy Quaid’s star turn in the indie pic, were “drugged-out dreck.”
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“Spouting Shakespeare as he stands in a full-length fur coat with penis hanging out, Quaid must compete with a howling wind. Falstaff he ain’t, especially when the coat comes off and we’re left to watch naked nuttiness signifying nothing,” Birnie wrote.
The press materials accompanying the Star Whackers bow portray a film about Randy Quaid being hounded by assassins looking to murder celebrities and who “plot his demise and hunt him so to appropriate for themselves his value as a movie star.”
Turns out the Quaids are not alone among celebrities targeted by Hollywood hitmen and prosecutors. “There is a plague upon the Hollywood star system since 1995: movie stars are worth more dead than alive due to lucrative ad revenue on the internet,” the film’s media materials explain.
The Quaids’ movie, inspired by how they evaded apparent Hollywood assassins to get to Canada, screened as part of a double-bill at the Rio Theatre alongside another Randy Quaid movie, Real Time.
The Quaids arrived in Vancouver last October, and were arrested on outstanding warrants for misdemeanours in California.
They sought refugee status, telling Canadian officials they were seeking protection from “star whackers” they said were murdering Hollywood celebrities.
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