FLIRTING WITH DISASTER (1996) 1/2* More like "getting serial gang-banged by disaster." For the first 75%, and the final 5% or so, this film is a legitimate contender for the prized title of Worst Film Ever Made. Forget the insipid plot and nauseating sets, those are the strengths. Try to forget, try to forget. Ben Stiller is offensive to a magnitude previously attained only by Jim Carrey among his contemporaries. I mean, it's so bad that you don't want to even kick his ass. Partly because you'd have to touch him, but more so because he's incapable of doing anything that would make so much as noticing him of any interest whatsoever. During this portion of the film Mary Tyler Moore and George Segal do a fine, if magnified in what's supposed to be a humorous manner, rendition of a middle-aged New York couple. Much is made of that fact that they're supposed to be Jewish, just in case the audience doesn't even know its ethnic sterotypes. Casting flummoxed by having Téa Leoni be a dull divorcee in a bad suit-I mean, c'mon, give the girl some colour and quirks-as a dull person she's really dull. Things either improve, or are sad beyond recognition, when Alan Alda (replete with very cool Grateful Dead jean jacket-but who's playing "Truckin'?") and Lily Tomlin are introduced with about fifteen minutes left. I mean, they're great actors, even more surprising they're great here. They stand out like two exotic daffodils in a giant turd ranch. Their dialogue is incredibly natural, they know a little bit about hippie culture and its inherent self-righteousness. They rule, they have all of the characteristics, good and bad, that they should. I want a full-length film with just these people! Instead Stiller comes back on and makes everyone vomit all over the place, the audience I mean, the cast earns their pay by holding it in.