Tag Archives: comedy

ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction

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I have watched a lot of movies already today, so these are probably going to go kind of fast. The first such was a political comedy about a viral terrorist attack on American soil in the wake of 9/11. Zombies of Mass Destruction is a lot higher on concept than plot, but that turns out not to be wiener a complaint, because the concepts, in execution, are pretty much hilarious. Whether it be churchgoers versus gay dudes, the NRA versus hippies, or rednecks versus hot Persian chicks, every scene is full of a) things I found funny and b) zombies.  So, y’know… that’s cool?

I can’t figure out what else to write, there are too many drunk people being distracting around me. Maybe I’ll be better next movie?

Your Highness

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Stoner comedies, right? They vary wildly between the kind of thing only stoned people can enjoy and the kind of thing everyone should ought to dig, even if the stoned people will laugh harder. (I’m thinking here of Pineapple Express, which is apropos, since this was made by and stars many of the same people.) The point of all that, of course, is to allow me to place Your Highness onto that scale, right? Well, it’s somewhere in the middle, and while that’s not was I was hoping for, it’s not a terrible place to be either. (Although I should also say it’s kind of misframed by the title and previews and may not be a stoner comedy at all.)

The bright side, though, is that it’s really quite good as a fantasy adventure movie, enough so to surprise me. James Franco is an infinitely likable hero-type who must ride forth to rescue his girlfriend from the tragically underused wizardly nemesis, with the help of his jealous brother Danny McBride[1], his brother’s manservant, and also warrior-small-p-princess Natalie Portman, who really has been in a lot of movies this year. There’s a prophecy, a magic sword, a ton of cool special effects, and a standard yet well-presented story of personal growth.

I guess my point is this: if you are looking for a decent-but-not-brilliant fantasy movie that is frequently funny to boot, this is that film. If you are looking for a full-fledged comedic send-up of the swords and sorcery genre, you’ll probably have to wait for Simon Pegg to write one.

[1] You’ve seen him in stuff even if you don’t know it yet. This may not be his break-out lead role, but I expect he’ll have one such any time now.

Paul (2011)

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This will be the simplest review I’ve written in quite a long time. or, at least, the simplest positive review. Because, you see, Paul was brought to you, as they say, by the creators and stars of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. And what they did with the zombie and the buddy cop premises respectively, they have done with the alien premise here: and that is to look at it from all[1] of its various extant Hollywood iterations, and then send them up in right proper hilarious fashion, with digressions toward both the black helicopter set and the competition[2] between the theories of evolution and intelligent design.

My point is that if you’ve seen some combination  of the other two movies, you already know how you’ll feel about Paul; and if you haven’t, damn, get on with it already! They’re easy to find, yo.

[1] For inevitably small literal values of all, but they do what they can.
[2] I’ve said before that sometimes the jokes are written just for myself? This is an example of that. Heh heh.

Take Me Home Tonight

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Sometimes, I think a movie gets made mainly for the soundtrack. You could make a case that Forrest Gump is such a movie, honestly, though of course it has other charms. And similarly, I don’t really mean anything derogatory about the movie attached to the soundtrack when I say that about Take Me Home Tonight.[1] But they did just make a really big deal out of all the songs of the ’80s they were able to cram in there. As for the movie itself, well, for the most part, you’ve seen one teen sex / coming-of-age comedy, you’ve seen them all. Will Topher Grace manage to get the girl while learning something valuable about himself before the events of this crazy night are through? Will his sidekick have zany unrelated adventures that push the limit a lot further than anything the main character and his chick[2] do, because their centrality to the plot makes them somehow more pure to the audience?

Though I did find it interesting that they used the  (anachronistic?) Gen-X and -Y trope of children never managing to leave home. Maybe kids in the late ’80s were already doing that? But it sure wasn’t getting portrayed yet, so it was noticeable and odd and at the same time clearly (to me) an attempt to make modern viewers of the same age able to relate. Which, while not precisely a revelatory moment in cinema is at least a slight variation from my original claim that you’ve seen them all, right? Plus also, I’m pretty sure that Anna Faris comes-of-age during her 25% of the plot, so that’s cool, even if nobody can think of another example for me!

Oh, and additional things to say real quick, I strongly approved of proto-goth and barely recognizable Michelle Trachtenberg, and strongly disapproved of the anti-gravity bangs sported by some 60% of the female cast. Remind me why that happened, again? I just don’t get it.

[1] Bizarrely, I don’t remember that particular song ever getting played. I wonder what that means?
[2] There should be more coming-of-age comedies where the chick is the main character. Are there any? Do chicks not come-of-age?[3] I have seen at least a couple of sex comedies where the chick is the main character, though I can’t remember what right now.
[3] Obviously they come of age. The hyphens represent the fact that I may be thinking of something that is peculiarly male and 20th/21st Century American and is not therefore broadly applicable, and hence the lack elsewhere.

Little Fockers

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I think the most misleading thing about Little Fockers is the title, in that, while present, the Focker children are never quite the focus of the story like you might expect. It’s like… okay, you know how Anton Chekhov[1] said that if you see a gun on the mantel in act one of a play, it had better be fired by act three? This is like that play, in that there the children are on the metaphorical mantel, and in fact they get used in all sorts of ways. But, and here is my point, Anton Chekhov was not talking about a play named The Gun. See? They are a means to several different ends, but never once an actual focus. Maybe lots of movie titles work this way, and I just generally disregard them?

Anyway, though, the plot: a couple of movies ago, Ben Stiller married a blonde chick that I’ve only really seen in these movies, the result of which is that Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman get to be in-laws, and Stiller and De Niro have formed an uneasy truce. But all kinds of small troubles (child-raising, finances, sex lives, home renovations) lead to a renewal of the same hostilities between the two leading men that have been the theme of the entire series, and it’s impossible to avoid an unpleasant sense of déjà vu[2].  Especially when the flick itself is only mildly chuckle-worthy for the first two acts. Still, it eventually does get to be pretty amusing, though whether this was because my defenses were gradually worn down or they really did save the best for last is highly debatable.

Jessica Alba’s by now ubiquitous lingerie shot isn’t worth the price of admission, but it at least lets you convince yourself it was worth the time spent. …and if you know it won’t let you do that, I can safely say this is not the movie for you.

[1] Probably, but maybe someone else; in any event, not Samuel Clemens.
[2] Will they form a new uneasy truce by the end of this one? At what point does the terminology get downgraded to détente?

Due Date

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I can just about guarantee you that you’ve seen Due Date before. I mean, the point of a new comedy is to provide semi-unique situations in which the funniness may flower, so you haven’t seen precisely the same movie as Due Date before (unless you have, and it was named Due Date, in which case that’s what I’m talking about right now, so you see). But you’ve seen Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Or, if not that, you’ve seen the Odd Couple, and putting it in a car really doesn’t change the fact that these guys are polar opposite who hate each other a little bit, and yet there are Circumstances that force them to Figure It Out, one way or another. And man, even if you haven’t seen those, you’ve seen Sesame Street. So don’t try to pretend this movie has a new premise. It just doesn’t.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. At least, not as long as your movie is extremely funny[1] or has extremely strong actors to carry the conflict on their backs[2]. Because, really, I think the next genuinely new comedy I see will be the first one that anybody has seen in probably centuries and possibly millennia.

[1] This one wasn’t, although it was funny. But there’ve been enough amazing comedies in the last couple of years that I’m both sated and jaded, and therefore more than willing to call out the difference between ‘I laughed’ and ‘I laughed until I was hurting’.
[2] This one did. I will I think never get tired of watching Robert Downey Jr. do anything, and Zack Galifianakis, for all that he is not the straight man of the pair, manages to pull off an incredible and limitless flow of dignity through every obscene, absurd, and insane situation that the two of them encounters, and believe me, these are many and varied. But we already have established that you knew that part, having seen this movie-or-possibly-skit-on-Sesame-Street before.

Red (2010)

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Remember that time when they made that movie about a bunch of retired astronauts who went back into space one last time, for some reason? Red is like that, except about spies. The Double-Oh kind, I mean. On the bright side, it’s quite a bit funnier than I remember the astronaut movie being, as long as you don’t look too closely at the romantic subplot that Bruce Willis kicks off by kidnapping the hot mom from Weeds in order to head off (self-fulfilling) attempts upon her life. But of course it all works out, as movies do, without any long-term police involvement. Anyway, though, aside from that it’s a fun, breezy romp of exactly the type you’d expect from a spy movie based on a graphic novel of some kind. There’s a plot, but only enough to justify young spies trying and failing in spectacular ways to kill old spies; definitely nowhere near enough to comment upon. So, if you like that kind of thing, or just recognizable actors being reasonably funny? Dig it.

It’s a Funny Kind of Story

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It’s really no wonder I see as many movies as I do, since I intend (with failures, sure, but the intent is always there) to see a movie on any given Wednesday afternoon, and then I still see other movies on the weekends or whenever. This Wednesday’s movie was It’s Kind of a Funny Story, an accurately-titled light drama about an overstretched New York City teen who asks to be committed to a mental hospital to get away from his suicidal thoughts, and only realizes after the fact what being committed actually means. And then he, y’know, learns about life and love and himself, and a lot of his fellow patients learn about these things on the way. If this sounds more than a little twee, well, it kind of was, but it had that type of self-aware tweeness that seems to say, look, this is basically a real story, and sometimes life can be a little twee, and, what are ya gonna do?

But the important thing is that it was often funny and extremely sweet, and sometimes I like movies that make me feel good. (I always like movies that make me laugh.) Oh, and another important thing is that it was populated in the main by very talented actors. Other than a few of the ancillary high school kids, pretty much everyone was really good. Good enough for me to take note of it, I mean, and one has to be a pretty strong outlier (in either the good or bad direction) for me to take note of one’s acting skill. So there’s that. But mainly, the funny and the sweet.

The Other Guys

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You know how buddy cop movies, even the comedic ones, have these heroic types who rush in, guns blazing and authority fully-bucked, to destroy a lot of property, set off several explosions, and generally save the day in the most visible way possible? This movie isn’t about them. You know the wisecracking jackass rival cops who inevitably do the wrong thing but are never quite actively evil, just in the way a lot? Not them either. Not even the cop who’s three days from retirement and will probably die nobly very soon. Nope, as the movie itself will tell you moments in, this one is about the other guys, the ones who are relegated firmly to background shots, the ones who fill out paperwork and ride desks.

In addition to a reasonable amount of comedy, there’s also some amount of social relevance: the big case isn’t about drugs or prostitution or terrorism; no, it’s about financial shenanigans, in the tens of billions of dollars range. You know, exactly the kind of thing that’s been in the public consciousness since 2008 or so. I wish I could say that big of a lead time has been enough to get it back out of our minds, but the way things have gone, nope, it’s every bit as relevant as when the writer first started the script. (Thankfully, the main focus on comedy keeps it from being too trite, the way the same movie written as drama would’ve been.)

All in all, it’s not life-changingly funny or life-changingly insightful, but it was a decent way to spend half an afternoon.

Eric

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If all the Discworld books had been like Eric, well, okay, probably most people that I know would still have read them. They are, after all, competently written comedic fantasy. But they wouldn’t talk about them nearly as much as they do, at the least. I mean, as a representation of the kinds of things that tend to happen in Discworld, it is a top notch book. The problem is that, even as short a distance into the series as I am, I’ve come to expect a fair amount more incisive literary and social depth, and never mind the amount I expect from all the buzz that surrounds later books in the series. By contrast to that experience/buzz, this book was a merely[1] funny series of vignettes strung together as a parody of Faust with a horny thirteen-year old in the eponymous role and resident failure (as a wizard, too, but I more meant it with a capital F) Rincewind as the wish-granting demon. If that doesn’t make a lot of sense, well, that’s what the plot is for, yeah?

The sad thing is, I’m totally not joking about it being funny or a really good sample of the kind of thing that happens every day on the Disc. If there’s a moral to my story, it’s this: expectations are a fickle bitch. And as for great expectations, well, they were written by Dickens, which I think tells you everything you need to know.

[1] he says, as though that’s not a reasonably tough accomplishment on its own