Over the weekend, I went to Scarecrow Video and discovered "Rappin'," a musical movie made in 1985.

Directed by Joel Silberg—who also directed "Breakin'," a 1984 musical about breakdancing—"Rappin'" stars Mario Van Peebles as John Hood. Home from jail, Hood reconnects with his family and merry men (two of which are Eriq La Salle and Kadeem Hardison, of "ER" and "A Different World" fame) to find no small amount of drama in his beloved inner-city Pittsburgh.

The movie feels like it was made by tons of people, each of whom thought they were making a different movie, none of whom had ever actually listened to rap music.

Bad things about "Rappin'":

1. The acting. Pornographic movies have better acting than "Rappin'."

2. The overdubbing. All the dialogue is added post-production, none of it matches with anybody's mouth.

3. The raps. Everyone is off beat, which is crazy because they're rapping the simplest raps ever rapped.

4. The plot. IMDb says: "An ex-con and break-dancer helps save a neighborhood from a greedy developer while trying to win a rap contest." Throw in a romance and a gang war and you're almost there. It's a confuse-a-thon.

5. The sexual politics/misogyny. Eriq La Salle calls somebody "fag." Hood's love interest talks like she hurt her head in a car crash. All the other women are hysterically emotional or hooker-ish or wide-eyed in love with Hood. There's a rap called "Lady Alcohol" wherein alcohol is personified as an evil lady. She'll getcha.

6. The characters. Characters in musicals are allowed to be a little flat, but when you put a fat guy in a sweatshirt that says "I Love Food" and name him "Fats," that's going too far.

7. The age-inappropriateness of one of the kids' songs. "Golly Gee" by Tuff, Inc., a group of children in "Rappin'" for no apparent reason, is weirdly adult. It features a long spoken word section where a boy pleads for a girl to drop the zero and get with the hero. The whole thing has a latent sexual energy that feels like it came from some creepy old man songwriter/choreographer.

"Rappin'" is a spectacular disaster on every artistic level. The day I rented it, I watched it twice. If you like laughing and are in the mood for some good ol' brainlessness, definitely check it out.