Tag Archives: comedy

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?

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

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Rainy days plus dollar movies equals a pretty decent salvage of a date day, if you ask me. Although I guess I never saw the middle one, the original Ice Age was pretty good, so I was perfectly happy to accept the idea of checking out Ice Age 3 when it was presented to me. Dollar movies, for now, means no 3D, so I dunno about that part. But the movie itself was mixed. As a kid movie, it was perfectly fine, sometimes way to kiddy for me like you’d expect, other times with surprisingly naughty dialogue that had me laughing in shock as much as humor. But, y’know, adventure, heart-warmingness, dinosaurs, all the stuff you expect in a kid movie, even if it is served a bit lukewarm to not burn all those metaphorical kid tongues. I mean, it had Denis Leary, and even lukewarm Denis Leary will entertain me pretty well. I may even be a fan.

As an adult movie… I mean, you know it won’t work, right? So when they try, is that a good thing because they want to overcome their limitations, or is it a bad thing because they give you whatever brief moment of unfortunate hopefulness? I honestly can’t decide, either in this case or as a general purpose question for the genre. In this case, the adult theme they inserted was the way that friendships are able to suffer when some friends are married and starting families while other friends are still free-wheeling singles.[1] And I was a little bit interested in seeing where they went with the line of thought, especially since Denis Leary was the main representative of the free-wheeling class, and I thought it might spice up his otherwise kid-friendly performance at least a little. Instead of that actually happening, the sloth character was put into danger via an underground lost dinosaur world, and everyone ended up on a quest to save him, at the end of which they all just decided to stick together and be a big family unit instead of actually resolving any of the underlying fractures that initially raised the question. Which is fine in a kid movie, but I thought, if only for a few moments, that it might be more.

Oh, well. On the bright side, there was a canyon chase on pterodactyls, and a lot of lava. That shit is awesome even in 2D, no matter what else might be going on around it disguised as plot. So there’s that. That, and velociraptors.

[1] It occurs to me, belatedly, that not many free-wheeling singles are going to show up in the seat for this one, so the message might have been skewed more than a bit from the start. But okay.

Jennifer’s Body

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This was not the movie I expected. I saw previews in which the freakishly hot Popular Girl and the attractive but movie-mousy Best Friend have a power-based friendship that devolves when the hot chick is revealed to be a vampire, and I was pretty sure I’d be seeing a horror-slanted riff on the darkly comedic high school ground broken by Heathers. Coming out of the theater though, I can better relate it to the cinematic version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that Joss Whedon disliked so much. There’s still a little black comedy, sure, but it’s pretty much an even split between an actual horror movie and an over-the-top zany comedy.

Jennifer’s Body follows the devolution of that primary relationship I mentioned after the aforementioned Jennifer turns out to be a demon who is gradually eating the boys in the senior class. Which is not really a good measure of… Well, words are kind of failing me here, which is unfortunate because it’s a surprisingly good flick. Mixed in with the hilarity and the occasional scares is a pretty decent metaphor for growing out of school relationships that are based more in history than reality and toward adulthood. Then again, the paired sex scene between the main characters in dueling scenes[1] made no sense to me at all, so I’m not trying to say it’s all oniony layers of impressive and thoughtful depth here.

But I can say that Megan Fox has the best set of dying words I have ever seen on screen.

[1] 2018 edit: I know what I mean here, but damned if I can figure out how to phrase it better. They each were having sex with other people, in different locations, in one intertwined scene in the movie, is what I mean to say.

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard

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Movie genres, you may or may not have noticed, should be sorted by decades as well as types. 1950s screwball romantic comedies, for example, are quite different from 1990s staples such as Sleepless in Seattle. 1970s horror movies are a very different[1] thing from the 1980s slasher-dominated field, which is different again from the 1990s slickly self-aware and post-modern era. (The 2000s, across all film genres, are the decade of remakes.) My point, which may otherwise be lost in an accidental yet wholly predictable digression, is this: if you think that the 1980s comedy genre in which as much ridiculous shit is crammed into each scene as humanly possible and in which, often, the misfits battle it out with their traditionally powerful rivals for control of [the summer camp/the car wash/the campus/the used car lot] is the very best decade for comedy, then you should ought to go see The Goods. Because whoever wrote and/or directed the movie absolutely thinks so too.

I’ve already pretty well described the movie exactly, but to give it fair shrift: a failing car lot hires professional traveling car salesmen led by Jeremy Piven to come in on the Fourth of July weekend and move a lot of merchandise. Occasionally offensive[2] but generally funny hi-jinx ensue until[3] an ill-considered bet against a rival car lot threatens the whole team. Looking back, I can’t say exactly why it struck me so, but the Abe Lincoln skydiving scene was the hardest I’ve laughed at a piece of film since the Japanese investors came to Arrested Development.

[1] and, I would argue, more primally evil
[2] again, in exactly the kinds of ways you’d expect a 1980s comedy to be offensive; no surprises here
[3] well, they continue the ensuing trend after the second act turn as well, don’t get me wrong