THIS WEEK IN CINEMASOCHISM: Movie 43 (2013)

Just why Movie 43 exists is a good question.  A middling collection of short sketches starring A-list actors might have been a novelty in the time of Kentucky Fried Movie or Amazon Women on the Moon, the obvious inspiration for this strange anthology spearheaded by Peter Farrelly.  But with the rise of Funny or Die, it's not out of the ordinary to see the biggest of names turn up in short films and sketches online.  A movie full of them is kind of like a VHS full of Blu-rays.

Because the movie is a collection of sketches from different directors with little connection and no continuity, they by nature range from the very funny to the not funny at all.  Kind of like the recent horror experiment The ABCs of Death, when it is good, it is very good.  When it is not, it's at least short.

Most of the films aim for pure grossout effect, and seeing famous actors doing decidedly grotesque things is one of the movie's redemptive joys.  Farrelly directs two sketches himself, both about blind dates gone wrong.  One of them, "The Catch," is awfully easy once the premise is revealed, but it moves briskly, gets laughs and ends early, and Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman are good sports as the two people in question.  He also directs the wraparound sequence, in which Dennis Quaid pitches the anthology to movie producer Greg Kinnear; this segment overstays its welcome quickly, though Quaid's outfit alone is good for a laugh.

Some sketches wring themselves out before they're over.  Real-life couple Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts are funny as parents homeschooling their son, though the sketch has limited gas in it.  A love story in which Anna Faris has a strange request for boyfriend Chris Pratt is a little too obvious, though the performances are genuine, particularly from JB Smoove as Pratt's best friend.  Griffin Dunne's sketch, about a weird grocery store romance (Kieran Culkin and Emma Stone), and Brett Ratner's, about a couple of guys (Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville) who catch a leprechaun (Gerard Butler), are pretty much swings-and-misses.  An overlong sketch about Batman (Jason Sudeikis) ruining Robin's (Justin Long) chances on a date is painfully labored, though it does feature a welcome appearance by John Hodgman.

The sketches that work best are the ones that have something up their sleeves other than grossouts.  Best is Elizabeth Banks's, about a young girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) on a date getting her first period, and the men around her having no idea what to do.  Steven Brill's, in which a room full of corporate executives are unable to determine why their product is injuring so many young men, is very funny, and contains some great deadpan work from Richard Gere and Aasif Mandvi.  James Gunn's is a wonderfully disgusting story about a woman (Elizabeth Banks) who's a bit upset at her boyfriend's (Josh Duhamel) relationship with his housecat.

And Rusty Cundieff, a veteran of "Chappelle's Show" and director of Tales from the Hood, a great and underseen socially conscious horror-comedy, delivers a faux sports reel about an African-American basketball team about to be the first to play against a white team, and a coach (Terrence Howard) who seems to be the only one not worried.  The sketch's one joke is a well-worn one, but it works, because of the time at which it takes place, and how the white team is portrayed, and how the inevitable punchline is executed.

** out of ****

Is it really that bad?: No.

Pain level: Beginner, though some of the longer sketches breed impatience.