Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise (1995) from Tuna

Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise is a BBC comedy from Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, The Beach, A Life Less Ordinary). Michael Begley plays a slacker who is only interested in making dance music mixes and becoming a DJ. His girlfriend, Katy Cavanagh, is supporting them as a strip-o-gram girl. As the film opens, she is the entertainment for the retirement party of a vacuum cleaner salesman, who is being retired because he is near death. The old fella, in fact, dies before the end of the party. Watching from the wings, Begley listens to an impassioned motivational speech, decides to become a vacuum cleaner salesman, and immediately becomes involved in a sales competition, in which the salesman training him is competing for the golden vac award, which includes two weeks in paradise.

The villains in the film are two other very successful salesmen, and the young woman hired to bring internet sales into the company.

Although the plot centers around the Michael Begley character, the film really belongs to the comical character actor Timothy Spall, who is the veteran vacuum salesman assigned to train Begley. Spall is the epitome of the unscrupulous salesman. He operates at such a high energy level from the start of the film on, you know that he will flame out spectacularly at the end of the film. Think of this approximately as a humorous Death of a Salesman comedy about a dying breed, the old fashioned door-to-door vacuum salesman.

NUDITY REPORT

Katy Cavanagh shows breasts and buns at the start of the film.

As a former door-to-door salesman (a very brief career), I did find the film somewhat nostalgic in spots, but toward the end I couldn't wait for it to be over.

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The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, this is a C, one of those quirky high energy British comedies, a solid one, but not one of the best ones.

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