Tag Archives: comedy

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

Dinner for Schmucks

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Imagine you work in “business”, by which I mean the generic everyjob that seems to only exist in Hollywood’s imagination, where people are trying to get a promotion for a corner office, and there’s a meeting in a long room with the boss at the head of the table and people throw out ideas and are called on one at a time and so forth. Got it? Now, imagine that you are about to get that corner office, only you have to impress your boss at a monthly dinner he hosts by (along with all the other invitees) bringing along a complete moron, convincing these people that they’re awesome and up for a prize, and then setting them loose. I mean, it can’t be just any moron, it has to be someone special, like a blind fencer or a ventriloquist who is married to his puppet, or a guy who creates dioramas out of mouse taxidermy. You are now in the midst of a moral quandary, because you’re basically an okay everyperson, and yet this is your only way up the ladder. Oh, and you’re also in a screwball French comedy.

I believe I have now adequately described Dinner for Schmucks, excepting only to add that it was quite a bit funnier than even the fairly decent previews indicated and that it really made a point of working that Steve Carell connection to get a lot of Daily Show people on screen. Good for them! If you like watching funny movies in theaters, you should give it a peek in a couple of weeks when it actually gets released.

Knight and Day

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I learned recently, and probably on the Daily Show, that Tom Cruise is a little bit of an adrenaline junkie, and thusly does as much of his own stuntwork as he can get away with. This is unfortunate, in that it ruins an otherwise accurate (albeit not punitive) claim that Cameron Diaz acted opposite his smile in the latest disposable summer action-comedy, Knight and Day. And man, do I ever wish I had more to say. I mean, it was good, right? Closer to cotton candy even than popcorn on the scale of movies-as-meals metaphors, but good. The actiony stuff was suitably actiony, the comedy was funnier than just that which appeared in the previews, the plot was reasonably well grounded[1], and Ms. Diaz’ lead character grows into the role of agent of her own destiny; I can’t even complain that she didn’t start that way, since she started the movie as a normal person chosen by a James Bond type as a dupe for his latest batch of spy games. So, y’know, nothing to complain about at all! But still, my overall sense of the thing is as delicate as spun sugar, and I’m sad to report that it will not someday be looked back upon as a classic of the genre.

Unless maybe that thing where a girl in an action movie developing her own agency is less common than I suppose, in which case that part should stand out over time.

[1] You can’t say it was grounded, full-stop, because, action movie. Right?

Hot Tub Time Machine

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I’ve said it before, and I will inevitably say it again: I really like sneak previews of movies. Like, a lot. They’re free, which doesn’t hurt, and I get to see them before other people, which is nice for this whole ‘review’ gig I have going. But they’re usually only a day or two before release and if I’m at all busy, I still fail to get the review out in time. So I guess what I like best of all are the rare previews that are weeks in advance, wherein I get to feel like I’m sitting on some kind of secret.

Yesterday, I got to do that again for the first time in a year or so, at least that I can remember. (If only there were documentation!) After sitting in line for a goodly while and having one of the most surreal stranger-conversations of my life between my friends and the dude in front of us in the line[1], after having all electronic devices stripped from us by the local constabulary[2] lest we make a shitty recording of the film to dump onto youtube, after eating pizza and drinking a milkshake to combat the effects of surreality and douchebaggery, we finally settled down to watch Hot Tub Time Machine, a movie about… well, I think you can tell from the title, right? But, okay, there are specifics, and they are as follows: three high school friends that have drifted apart (and also John Cusack’s nephew) decide to return to a ski resort that was the prime destination of their party days, to reconnect. Except the town is dead, the resort is falling apart, and things generally suck about as much as their lives do. But one drunken night in the hot tub later, they wake up at Winterfest 1986 in their teenage bodies. And then hijinx, as they say, ensue!

It really is a direct port of an ’80s teen sex comedy, except with a nostalgia filter and focus on adult friendships. And there’s also a cute hipster girl for Cusack who really doesn’t fit into the rest of the picture, but John Cusack [contractually] cannot be in a movie without a romantic interest. That’s just how things work. All in all, though? Pretty good stuff and definitely funny, with an excellent mixture of zany, raunchy, and sweet.

[1] I’d explain, but the explanation would I think actually be longer than the review if I did. I can’t even figure out how to sum it up in a snappy one-liner. It was just… bizarre.
[2] And, speaking of true stories: the constable guy actually said this, and my paraphrase is in no way misleading: “If I see you with a cellphone that you’ve snuck in here anyway, I have handcuffs and I’m empowered to march you out of the theater. … Let’s all try to have fun tonight!”

Cop Out

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What I found strangest about Cop Out was the wide disparity between its previews and its actuality. Instead of a zany comedy with cops as the main characters, it was exactly the same buddy action movie you’ve seen dozens of times before. I mean, sure, there were the differences in buddy: Bruce Willis is an inspired choice of straight man because he has long-standing comedic acting chops that possibly a lot of people have forgotten about, while Tracy Morgan is… well, I don’t know how to describe it, but how are you not already watching 30 Rock to know exactly what I mean? But the film itself? There is no newly unearthed buddy-flick arcana here; in fact, there are probably no surprises here at all.[1] But if you aren’t allergic to the genre and like things that are funny, this is a good way to spend an afternoon.

Also, and I say this with no trace of approbation, but there were multiple points throughout the movie where it really did seem like the lead actors had no script at all and were just directed to perform a skit about being cops. “Hey, guys, for this scene, we’re going to do a skit about an interrogation room. Now, for this one, let’s do a skit about a stake-out.” I do not know which of the script-writer or the actors (or possibly the director) I should be complimenting for the way those scenes turned out, but someone is getting a metaphorical basket of flowers right now. And, since it’s only 6 AM on the left coast, they’re probably a little pissed about it.

[1] I lie. The Brooklyn homeowner defending her property? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before, and it was a little bit amazing.

Youth in Revolt

Hello there, movies. I know it’s been a while, but I haven’t forgotten about you. I even wanted to see some of you, despite how it has looked. Soon, I will be back onto a schedule you can trust, and it will be like we’d never been apart. I would never give you up, nor let you down, and I would certainly never run around and hurt you.[1]

The movie I spent some time with last night was Youth in Revolt, based on a generally positive review from Fresh Air and my ongoing amusement with Michael Cera. It tells the highly episodic story of a sixteen year-old boy with a probably average and certainly miserable life, a downright horrible name (Nick Twisp), and a nagging virginity. After meeting the girl of his dreams in a northern California lake’s adjacent trailer park[2] and determining that she must surely take said virginity lest he die miserable and alone, he develops a split persona with an ironically wispy mustache and an endless supply of cigarillos that he names Francois Dillinger. With that character finally on screen at the end of the first act, the movie finally lurches out of its snail-paced romantic comedy first gear, rife with ubiquitous excessively cultured and vocabularied teens[3], and putts into black comedy at a stately second gear. This pacing issue, really, is its only serious problem. The laughs are sincere and sometimes side-splitting while they’re happening, but the flick is so very, very slow in between. Well, and there’s also the problem of Justin Long’s character, in that he seems to exist for no other purpose than to fulfill the deus ex marijuana role. Long story short? Probably not a movie worth seeing in the theater, but it was pretty funny if you’ve got an otherwise slow night and a DVD player somewhere in your future.

[1] Look, I… it happened so fast! I don’t know how to explain it.
[2] Although Sheeni manages to occasionally rise above that, it really is as intentionally trashy as it sounds.
[3] Likely in a (differently from the film’s main theme) rebellious response to their trashy or overly religious parents.

The Invention of Lying

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I know that October isn’t really the right time of year to watch comedies. I mean, it’s really a pretty straightforward process. October and February are for horror, November is for family movies and James Bond, December is for OMG-Drama, spring (and September? I’m not entirely sure where September fits) are for comedy, summer is for action blockbusters, and January is for movies that honestly shouldn’t ought to have been released. But, okay, Hollywood doesn’t always do the right thing, and also sometimes I am in the company of people who have an aversion to this or that type of movie. In this instance, despite there being a couple-few horror movies left for me to catch up on for the month, I ended up seeing The Invention of Lying.

Imagine, if you can, a world in which humans never learned how to lie. I mean, not about anything. They don’t even have that polite society filter that keeps them from saying whatever crosses their minds. And Ricky Gervais is one of this world’s losers, near the bottom of the genetic lottery, and almost out of job prospects despite talent, because of nothing more than unfortunate luck. And in this moment of disaster, a neuron fires in a way that has never happened before, and he, y’know, invents lying. Next thing you know, he has achieved fiction and religion, not to mention a ton of cash, yet despite all his efforts, he cannot win what he wants most of all: the love of Jennifer Garner. The rest, well, romantic comedy, I guess? Will he learn a valuable lesson, will it come too late, etc.

And you know, it was funny, and it was sweet, just as you’d expect. It was even funny for a regular funny movie, so quite a bit moreso than the usual romantic comedy. (It may have been sweeter than usual too, but as I had been rendered tipsy earlier in the evening, I do not fully trust my opinion on that matter.) The one thing I didn’t like was the religious angle, because it seemed, well, a little cruel. I mean, in the movie it wasn’t at all, but there was still this underlying snicker, like even though Ricky Gervais isn’t a jerk, probably whoever invented religion the first time was. And I figure that as many good religious people as there are, it didn’t have to be that way at the start. My headspace on this point may be all jumbled, I admit. It’s not like I disagree with the underlying point at all, I just don’t think it needed to be mean. So, there’s that?

Zombieland

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So, okay, Woody Harrelson versus the zombiepocalypse. There’s no chance I was not going to love this movie. Calibrate accordingly.

Well, nah, honestly I’ll be able to calibrate Zombieland pretty well my own self. Because it mostly was not one of the classic Romero zombie movie types where the zombies are a setting in which to cleverly satirize the American condition, I won’t be endlessly and high-falootin’ly describing the literary-cinematic influences and depth of the work, like I might be inclined to do in different circumstances. No, it was a pretty straightforward road trip movie, wherein our cast of characters must learn to trust each other and grow into a tight knit community by the end. Just like every road trip movie, is what I’m saying. Except for the part where road movies don’t usually have zombies, a hilarious running schtick about the rules to survive in Zombieland, or did I mention really a lot of zombies being fought by Woody Harrelson?

Seriously, what part of that premise isn’t pure gold?