Category: Comedy
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Larger Than Life is a different film today than it was ten years ago–back then, I remember, it was a big deal Matthew McConaughey starred in the film. There were reshoots to add more of him. Today, the film’s sold as a kid’s movie on DVD, which isn’t particularly appropriate, given a lot of the…
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The Ex reminds me of a 1980s comedy, but maybe not. Maybe more a 1990s comedy. I knew it did, but I couldn’t figure out why, until I realized it’s all about the information given the viewer. The Ex starts in New York and moves to Ohio in the first seven and a half minutes…
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I’m trying to imagine Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle with different leads and I’m coming up empty. The movie works because of John Cho and Kal Penn. With the exception of the absolutely horrible direction by Danny Leiner and the terrible editing–so incompetent I actually need to mention the guy’s name, Jeff Betancourt,…
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I was going to start this post off with a mention I had no idea spoof movies were back–then I realized I just hadn’t been partaking in them (I’m thinking the Scary Movie series and whatever else the Brothers Weinstein squeeze out between Oscar-lusts). Hot Fuzz is a technical spoof for the most part–though I…
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Bad Santa confused me a little. I’m not sure why I expected it to be something other than a traditional Hollywood redemption story–maybe because of Terry Zwigoff, maybe because I didn’t know (or didn’t remember from trailers and buzz) it was about Santa robbing malls. After seeing Zwigoff’s Ghost World, I avoided Bad Santa because…
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For the first thirty or so minutes, Home for the Holidays is exactly the film its trailer presented. It’s a genial family comedy with a recognizable cast, a mix of standard casting choices like Charles Durning (Dad), semi-standards like Anne Bancroft (Mom), and unknown ones like Geraldine Chaplin (crazy aunt). Even when Robert Downey Jr.…
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I’d forgotten how loud comedies could get. Maybe I haven’t seen enough eighties comedies lately, because watching The Dream Team, I kept wondering how I’d never noticed the music in the film before. I saw The Dream Team back on video, probably in 1990–Michael Keaton as Batman might not have been box office dollars, but…
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The first forty-five minutes of Flirting with Disaster play like Woody Allen mixed with a 1990s Miramax indie, which makes sense, since Flirting is a 1990s Miramax indie. That first half is real strong comedy of errors, then Josh Brolin’s bi (but married to fellow ATF agent Richard Jenkins, who’s phenomenal) old friend starts hitting…
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In the few reviews of The Ice Harvest I looked at before renting the DVD, the reviewers all called John Cusack’s lawyer character dumb. Watching the film, however, I noticed John Cusack was doing what he always does… playing John Cusack. So, I didn’t really see his character as stupid (I was trying to read…
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I really wish I knew what Arthur Penn was doing directing (and producing) this film. I suppose it’s a follow-up of sorts to Alice’s Restaurant or something. Penn did some great stuff in the 1970s, so seeing him doing a fill-in job (anyone could have directed this film) is kind of strange. Maybe he really…
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Having seen Bill Murray capital-a act for so long–it’s been ten years now, hasn’t it?–seeing him do Quick Change is a little disconcerting. At times, he’s so mellow, he almost isn’t there. I’ve seen Quick Change five or six times–the first being in the theater at the age of eleven–so I can’t remember if there…
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For what it is, George of the Jungle is a rather successful film. It has to appeal to kids (since it’s a Disney movie), teenage girls (who I presume liked Brendan Fraser and might buy the soundtrack–from Disney Records, of course), and even “George of the Jungle” fans. Viewers of the show would be parents…
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Apparently, when Christopher Guest doesn’t do pseudo-documentaries, his films simply don’t work. I didn’t realize For Your Consideration was different in that approach until a lot further in than I should have, probably fifteen minutes or something. As it opens and introduces the set-up (I guess that part would be called the first act, which…
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Back when Scream was a big deal–when Scream 3 was a big deal, actually–the ads for Bats started coming out. Bats spelled backwards is Stab, the Scream movie-in-movie… and it was from some unknown company with a suspiciously comic cast. I thought Miramax was going the extra mile and creating a sensation around their franchise.…
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To be fair, I haven’t seen Spinal Tap in fifteen years, so when I say I remember it being funnier… well, I’m sure I used to think Caddyshack was funnier too. Funny even. Spinal Tap achieved, in the late 1990s, a mythic reputation among film and DVD geeks for a couple reasons. First, I suppose,…
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A Good Man in Africa is about the British practicing a modified form of the age-old British diplomacy in Africa (duh) in modernity. As such, when I saw John Lithgow’s name in the credits, I did not expect him to be playing a Brit. However, Lithgow does play one and he does so quite poorly.…
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Scoop starts out on awkward footing. The film follows Ian McShane’s recently deceased reporter on the boat across the Styx, where he gets a great scoop. McShane’s great and Woody makes the scene a lot of fun. Unfortunately, when Scarlett Johansson and Woody the actor show up in the next scenes, they can’t compare to…
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Andrew Fleming’s Dick has an irresistible premise (slow-witted teenage girls take down Nixon, not Woodward and Bernstein), but it turns out not to be enough for a movie. Not even a ninety-four minute movie. Besides inspired casting of Watergate figures (Dave Foley as Haldeman is probably my favorite, but Saul Rubinek’s Kissinger is the best–and…
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Pocket Money is, in addition to being an excellent film, an example of a couple interesting things. First, it’s a 1970s character study, which is a different genre than what currently passes for a character study (if there are character studies at all anymore, since Michael Mann and Wes Anderson stopped doing them). The 1970s…
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I was just reading–today or yesterday–Ken Levine talk about how there are no “balls-out R-rated” comedies with female leads. (His post is here). Jumpin’ Jack Flash is, obviously, a balls-out R-rated comedy starring a woman. Things have obviously changed in the last twenty years, both in film and television–female stand-ups don’t get TV shows and…
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From the first scene of Support Your Local Sheriff!, I thought of one thing: Blazing Saddles. Mel Brooks lifted the tone of the frontier townspeople scenes, just giving them ribald dialogue. In Sheriff, the humor poked at the Western stereotypes is smarter and funnier. The characters themselves are–in character–aware of the absurdities of the genre…
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Extended version of Kevin Smith’s pseudo-New Jersey, pseudo-mall culture comedy but really just pop culture references and bad dirty jokes movie tacks about a half hour onto the front before the movie even gets to the mall. Most of that added time is about Jeremy London, who’s terrible, his on-the-rocks girlfriend, Claire Forlani, who’s terrible,…
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Funny comedy about rich guy Tom Hanks going into the Peace Corps in the early sixties and discovering some humility as well as a lady (Rita Wilson; she and Tom Hanks got married after meeting on the film). John Candy’s along as Hanks’s affable sidekick. Hanks is good at the snotty rich guy thing, Candy’s…
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Punny–as opposed to funny–all-star disaster movie spoof about the crew and passengers of a nuclear-powered Greyhound. Things go terribly wrong with the bus and only lead Joseph Bologna can hold it all together. The absurdist humor always takes the easy route, but there are some rather good performances and then some not so good ones…
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Funny but bad combination of stand-up special and variety show, with Silverman awkwardly going between her mediocre set and bad musical numbers. Better direction might help (about the only good thing about the film, technically, is the editing) but barely over half the 70 minute run time is the stand-up. The rest is the bland,…
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Good coming of age story about natural born hippie Ben Lee breaking away from his parents and attempt to go square after high school, going to work in an insurance office. There’s lots of office drone tropes, but agreeably executed. McNamara is a fine director; he works hard to keep the viewer entertained. Rose Byrne…
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Aged very poorly eighties teen comedy about Molly Ringwald’s sixteen birthday getting forgotten because of big sister’s wedding. Movie more belongs to Anthony Michael Hall (as a lusty nerd pal of Ringwald’s) and Michael Schoeffling (Ringwald’s dream guy). Likable performances from the cast; absurdly shallow hi-jinks–with racism, ableism, and terrible treatment of women; not unsuccessful.…
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Occasionally funny but rather draggy for a ninety minute comedy about imbecile Steve Martin (the titular JERK) ending up rich and shacked up with Bernadette Peters. The first half at least makes sense, the second half is rushed and in summary or half-scene. And Peters becomes a background extra without any lines for the third…
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Fun–which is appropriate since director Jackson referred to this extended version as “The Director’s Fun Cut”–slapstick horror comedy about a ghost hunter (Michael J. Fox) who finds himself having to deal with actually dangerous ghosts, instead of just the amusing kind. Along the way he romances Trini Alvarado and battles a crazy FBI agent (Jeffrey…
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Comedic, tragic look at love in the (very mid-1990s) call waiting era. A group of New Yorkers try to make plans to hang out, hook up, and everything else but can never seem to manage to get off their phones long enough to actually meet each other in real life. Great cast, with Alanna Ubach…
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