Most of the time when I bring you an installment of my You Ain't Seen Nothing' Yet series, I talk about a comedy or drama. However, in light of my recent trip to Iceland, I decided to bring you my review of an extraordinarily strange documentary. And strange it truly is...and I cannot believe that I saw it!The Final Member is an ultra-strange film about a man in Iceland who runs the world's only museum dedicated to penises. At the time this movie was made, the Phallological Museum was housed in the small town of Husavik. Although this collection of mammal penises is second to none, the retired school teacher and owner, Sigurður 'Siggy' Hjartarson, felt the museum was lacking one essential item...a human penis. This film is about his obsession to get someone to donate theirs to his collection.Now when it comes to collecting human penises, you cannot legally just hack one off a dead guy--you need to have all the legal niceties taken care of before the donor expires. Such an opportunity arises early in the film. An elderly Icelandic man, Páll, decides to donate his genitals upon his death. And, since he's in his 90s, it doesn't look like it will be long before the museum receives this donation. But there are two problems. First, due to his advanced age, the penis is possibly awfully small and wouldn't be a welcome addition to the collection. Siggy insists on one at least 5 inches in length. Second, and even more strange, is that there is another person ready, willing and able to donate their penis right now...while he's still alive! So, while you clearly can see that Siggy is an oddly obsessed man, his obsession is clearly minor compared to the American named Tom and his insistence that everyone see his member now AND that he be able to visit the museum to see it himself! But Tom's odd story doesn't stop there. Through the course of the film he comes up with a comic book character based on his penis (which he nicknames 'Elmo') and he begins to drive poor Siggy crazy with all his demands and suggestions! So what will happen? Will Siggy be able to complete his museum? And, if so, who will the first donor actually be?Canadian filmmakers Zach Math and Jonah Bekhor have crafted an unusual yet expertly made film. In fact, it's done quite well in film festivals and has been nominated for several awards. So, despite the strange and possibly distasteful subject matter (depending on your perspective), the movie is extremely well done. Subject matter aside, Math and Bekhor have done themselves proud and the film is definitely worth seeing. Not surprisingly, it does have a few scenes involving penises that make this a rather adult film-- so don't invite Granny or Father O'Malley to come over to watch the film with you!By the way, if you are wondering how I learned about the film it's because I just visited the Phallological Museum less than two weeks ago! While visiting Reykjavik I learned that the museum had recently been relocated there and I took my family. There I saw information about the film at the museum and couldn't wait to see it when my trip was completed. And, since it's available streaming through Netflix, it didn't take long for me to see this quirky documentary. The film and the museum are well worth seeing (especially the gift shop), and since I assume most of you will never make it to Iceland, you can at least travel there vicariously with this movie.

Wow, a quirky subject! And it did sound like it could be interesting...but ultimately it's just pretty dull. The characters, who cares? It's just one big talk about their johnsons and it gets pretty tiring. Look at a documentary like, say, American Scream. That's sort of a quirky small scale subject for a doc, but there's a lot of layers and the people are interesting, and there's drama and laughs. I think film dorks like the Alamo bunch tend to get so caught up in a concept the rest doesn't matter. See how nerds reacted to th idea of Snakes on a Plane for example.Basically what I'm saying is, sometimes the film dorks have the worst taste. Case in point: The Final Member.

WARNING POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT: While this is a documentary and the final outcome of the "drama" part of it was, and is, publicly reported all over the world as the "competition" was happening, I do make comments which indicate "who lost," so if you have never heard of this actual news item, this review may "spoil" that part of the story for you. Think of it as if you are studying the history of a small country which experienced a civil war and you had never heard about it. The outcome is a matter of public record and can't be changed, but you might be the type of person who enjoys "getting" there as 95% of the fun.OK, so I just watched this documentary movie and it is very interesting and done in excellent taste. It gives considerable attention to history of the museum and it's founder, Sigurður Hjartarson. When the the drama of "who the first human donation would be" was actually happening, I was following it. After watching this, I am very glad with how it turned out. In my opinion, Tom Mitchell was (still is?) a total jerk and the consummate ugly American with all of his conditions, planning and control issues, even to the point of proving medical need to an American doctor as to why he should have his penis removed. It is interesting that once it was all over, he did not have the procedure done. So... just which was bigger, his medical need, his ego, or himself personified? Yes, he made me that angry. I HATE ugly Americans. They shame my country.But, it is an very good watch. I highly recommend you check it out.

I remember a few years ago in my sophomore year health class, learning about the obligatory sex organ unit, being deeply immersed in my internal thoughts about human sexuality so-much-so that you couldn't give me money to tell me what my teacher was talking about. My mind kept circling back from films I've seen that touched on sex, to romantic encounters people might have with each other, to the point I want to make here, that the penis and vagina are really not that attractive organs. Men have the luxury of having two immediate go-to body parts on women to feed their eyes, which are obviously the breasts and the buttocks, but women don't have that same luxury. Yet the organs we can't see - and the ones we ultimately desire to see the most - are arguably the two most hideous things on our body; but we're attracted to them.I bring this up because Siggi Hjartarson, the owner and founder of the Icelandic Phallological Museum, clearly finds the male sex organ attractive enough to construct and operate the only museum dedicated to housing penises of hundreds of different animals. The museum opened up in 1997, and inside, Hjartarson has severed mammal penises encased in formaldehyde for proper preservation and puts them on display with a vivid history behind each endowment. However, while Hjartarson has several penises from extinct species, and even a humongous one that once belonged to a sperm whale, he is missing a penis from a species that has billions of functioning ones right now - the homo sapien.That's where the documentary The Final Member comes in; a film just a tad over an hour long that shows Hjartarson's impressive collection as well as his quest to obtain the penis that will complete his collection. Hjartarson's health condition is greatly deteriorating, and while he has two men interested in donating their penises to the museum, he wants to be able to see the museum complete before he dies. The museum was founded after he received a bull's penis as a joke from a friend and, upon doing research, found the idea of opening a phallological museum intriguing and playfully taboo. Contrary to public perception and initial assumptions, Hjartarson's purpose of opening the museum is the furthest thing from being pornographic. Hjartarson, much like myself, admires the notion of how taboo and off-color it is for someone to mention penis in public, despite half of the world having the sex organ. The awkward part about the penis is that people make it awkward.In efforts to track down a human penis to complete his collection, Hjartarson finds two men, one of them named Pall Arason, a well-known Iceland womanizer who agrees to donate his penis to the museum when he dies. Another man is an American by the name of Tom Mitchell, who is perfectly willing to donate the museum his penis while he is still alive, hellbent on making his penis the most famous penis in the world. Mitchell even goes as far as to get a tattoo on the head of his penis, and has ambition to write a comic book series on his in pursuit of his goal.The Final Member works to show the different ways people want to appreciate and commemorate their own sex organs, to which I say continue and let flourish. Hjartarson has found a quirky, unique way to inspire thought and curiosity into something so frustratingly and unjustifiably taboo in a manner that allows education and curiosity to flourish, while maintaining a successful business all the more. The documentary is never too long, is consistently entertaining, and almost operates like a fictional film, with its quirky situations and focuses, but never in such a way that the distracting and often perplexing "mockumentary" features are played for gimmicks. This is a genuinely fun, thoughtful, and surprisingly moving little gem about a museum in dire need of one final endowment.Directed by: Jonah Bekhor and Zack Math.