Joe's Apartment

Joe's Apartment is a 1996 American musical black comedy film written and directed by John Payson (in his feature directorial debut), based on his 1992 short film of the same name, and starring Jerry O'Connell and Megan Ward. The first MTV Films production, it was the only one not to involve Paramount Pictures (the 2019 film Eli, which was distributed by Netflix, still had the involvement of Paramount). It was also the first film Blue Sky Studios was involved in. The main focus of the story is the fact that, unbeknownst to many humans, cockroaches can talk, but prefer not to, as humans "smush first and ask questions later". They also sing and even have their own public-access television cable TV channel. Actors providing the roaches' voices included Billy West (in his feature film debut), Jim Turner, Rick Aviles (in his final film role before his death), Tim Blake Nelson, BD Wong, and Dave Chappelle. The film received generally negative reviews from critics and was a box office failure. Plot Penniless and straight out of the University of Iowa, Joe moves to New York needing an apartment and a job. With the fortuitous death of Mrs. Grotowski, an artist named Walter Shit helps Joe to take over the last rent-controlled apartment in a building slated for demolition by convincing everyone that Mrs. Grotowski was Joe's mother. If Senator Dougherty can empty the building, he can make way for the prison he intends to build there, and uses thug Alberto Bianco and his nephews, Vlad and Jesus, to intimidate tenants. Joe discovers he has twenty to thirty thousand roommates, all of them talking, singing cockroaches who are grateful that a slob has moved in. Led by Ralph, the sentient, tune-savvy insects scare away the thugs in an act of enlightened self-interest that endears them to their human meal ticket. Tired of living on handouts from mom back in Iowa and after a series of dead-end jobs ruined by his well-intentioned six-legged roomies, Joe finds himself the unskilled drummer in Walter Shit's band. Hanging posters for SHIT, he encounters Senator Dougherty's daughter Lily, promoting her own project, a community garden to occupy the vacant site surrounding Joe's building.