Pauly Shore is Dead (DVD, 2005)

PAULY SHORE IS DEAD is a good idea both on paper and on film, a movie that answers the question "what ever happened to Pauly Shore?" with a satirical, sometimes self-deprecating, and often hilarious honesty. Tracing the rise of the comedic it-boy and his subsequent fall from favor, Pauly eventually loses everything: his popularity, his house, his representation and his career. He is humiliated in the public eye, and is forced to go to work parking cars at his mother's club, The Comedy Store; at a loss, he receives a visitation from the ghost of Sam Kinison, who advises suicide. According to Kinison, Shore's dead career would be resurrected and canonized in the event of the comedian's death, and Pauly decides to go along with this, at least to a point. He fakes his own death, and Kinison's prophecy comes true as all of Hollywood and fans across the nation begin to extoll the genius that was Pauly. Basking in the glow of his newfound appreciation, Shore goes out on the town in disguise, but unfortunately his secret is discovered, he's locked up, and now looks more the fool than ever. The film is successful on the strength of it's good-natured, self-conscious quality of comedic revelation, and is certainly augmented by its star power. The half-fiction, half-autobiographical film boasts cameos from the likes of Sean Penn, Pam Anderson, Paris and Nicky Hilton, Whoopi Goldberg, Kurt Loder, Carson Daly, Vince Vaghn, Snoop Dog, Ben Stiller, Britney Spears, Chris Rock, Corey Feldman, and Heidi Fleiss, among many, many others. It would appear that The Weiz is not quite as unpopular as he presents himself.