Tag Archives: comedy

Send Help

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During the previous date night, we saw previews for the new Sam Raimi film. Lo and behold, new date night happened soon enough that we actually got to go see said film, after sushi dinner. Yay, date night!

So, Rachel McAdams is a frumpy[1] single lady with a pet bird, a Survivor audition tape, and dreams of corporate promotion. Unfortunately, her old boss[2] has recently died, and his inheriting son has no real interest in her qualifications for the new Vice President position, because his frat bro is available, and also as I may have mentioned, she’s frumpy. But, because she’s actually talented at her job and they might lose some business, she’s invited along to Bangkok to close the big deal. Which is why she is available to wash up on an island down the beach from her boss when the plane unexpectedly crashes into the ocean on the way there.

Bam! Premise of Send Help achieved.

The boss guy is, as previously hinted at, kind of a dick. Maybe a lot of a dick, even. And Rachel McAdams is a little bit over the top with her intensity, even though she is certainly the aggrieved party. If this were on the Hallmark Channel, she’d soften his rough edges and he’d get her to let her hair down and they’d build a cozy island paradise for themselves. But it’s a Sam Raimi movie, so instead this is all psychological cat and mouse as we wait to see just how real that intensity is, and/or just how ingrained the dickishness is. Can they survive the elements and the circumstances and each other? It sure is fun (and hilarious and disturbing and disgusting) finding out!

Plus, get her away from the makeup artists for a few weeks, and she doesn’t look very frumpy at all. Funny how that works.

[1] If she was ten years older, I think they might have even gone for dowdy
[2] Portrayed via somewhat subtle implication by Bruce Campbell

Wake Up Dead Man

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Did you know they made a third Knives Out movie? Of course you did, it was like two months ago and you’ve already seen it. …and now I have too!

Wake Up Dead Man is a locked room mystery in which a fire and brimstone priest with a small but dedicated congregation is murdered, apparently by the new assistant priest (who has some specific Catholic title, and I will not be able to help you more than that) with a motive of “stop ruining the church”. But once Benoit Blanc gets involved, well, you know there’s going to be more to it than that.

The movie did a thing I’ve never seen before. Well, first it did something I’ve seen lots of times, which is dole out information in a way that recontextualizes what you thought you knew. And it does this several times. I could tell I was in for a treat when I had the idea it was basically all over but the “gather everyone in a room and tell them what really happened” scene, only to realize there was more than an hour left. Which brings me to what it did that I had never seen. The consulting detective, having been called in to solve the case, actually shows up in the middle of things and well before the events of the case are even over.[1]

Anyway, it’s a mystery, so I don’t really want to go crazy with detail, but I felt that the subject matter was treated with surprising kindness, even though it was ripe for lampooning or even axe-grinding. The typically star-studded cast was as good as you expect them to be, I could not stop chuckling, and every time I thought I had a handle on what was going on and felt very clever, I was 25-50% right at best, but never in a way that felt cheap or like I was actually writing the smarter story in my head. Good stuff.

[1] I know. Christie had Poirot onsite for murders all the time. The difference is, he just happened to be there when the events were set into motion. This was a different thing where you would expect the police and famous detective to only show up once the crime is over, but in fact the crime still had days left to go. Look, it’s unusual, okay!

Vicious Fun

A difference between the movies of the 1980s and the movies of the 2020s is that, for the most part, we have a more enlightened view of the way people ought to behave. For example, if you were a judgmental nerd with a crazy hot roommate in 1983, the arc of your story would be to win the roommate as a prize for your many inappropriate behaviours, such as berating her for wanting to watch Falcon Crest with her friends, or tailing her (admittedly scuzzball) date to a Chinese restaurant on the edge of town and inserting yourself into his life.

Whereas in the 2020s when you are that same loser character in 1983 under the same circumstances, and you take all of the same actions… you know, ultimately what I did not like about this movie is that he was still the protagonist at all. So be prepared for that, even if his end state isn’t quite as thoroughly rewarded as it once would have been.

The plot twist is that, after getting way too sorry for himself drunk and passing out in a supply closet of said Chinese restaurant, he wakes up to a small motivational self-help group in the main room of the now closed location. Before very long at all, he deduces that they’re not alcoholics so much as they are serial killers, and he’d better hope he can blend in if he wants to survive the night, much less get back to winning the heart of his roommate.

The other thing that would have made me like the movie more [aside from the aforementioned more sympathetic protagonist] is if I had not just seen the same overall plot play out across season one of the Dexter revival. Which is in no way their fault, since the movie predates the TV season by five years. Anyway, Vicious Fun was maybe sufficiently vicious, but definitely not sufficiently fun. I wanted more comedy out of my horror comedy than I actually received. Alas.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Rarely has an episode of my podcast hit the nail so squarely on the head, and rarely has a movie title so succinctly summed up its contents. The scare die was clowns or dolls, and the style die was cheesy. And so I have finally watched[1] Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

This is basically one of those teenage screwball comedies with a recognizable face as the annoyed authority figure and a lot of unrecognizable faces as the various teens getting themselves into screwball situations to annoy the authority figure. Only instead of trying to save the ski lodge from the evil yuppie developer, or trying to keep their frat house from being shut down by the dean, they’re trying to save the town from an alien invasion of clowns with a circus tent spaceship, cotton candy body containers, popcorn guns, and balloon animal minions.

This movie is exactly what it sounds like, exactly as good as it sounds like, and has not only a line of dialogue but also a theme song that name-drops the title. The script was not so much written as it was recorded during a late night dorm room weed session and then just filmed straight from the recording, with no notes, no editing, no rewrites, nothing. Whatever you think of, it’s what they thought of too.

I’m not going to turn around and say it’s good now. I’m not even going to say I’m being unfair.  But I will say that you have to truly admire the dedication to the bit. This is the kind of movie that proudly proclaims, “You think you can make a movie? All you need is a rich dentist and a time machine to get you back to the 1970s or ’80s. Because if we made this, you can too!” (For all I know, you don’t even need the time machine.)

Also, though, the klown kostuming is pretty legit.

[1] How have I not seen this before? I was expecting to be all, “oh yeah,” but nope. First time.

Psycho Goreman

You learn basically everything you need to know about Psycho Goreman[1] in the opening text crawl, when we learn that he comes from the planet Gigax. These are people who are definitely in a joking mood, and want you to be in on it. …for certain values of “you”.

There are these two siblings, and the younger sister is abusive to the nebbish older brother. (10 and 7, maybe?) For example, in their regular game of crazy ball[2], if he wins he gets something pretty regular, I forget what because it was reasonable, while if she wins, he has to dig a hole and then bury himself in it. And of course he never wins.

Anyway, in the course of digging the hole, they uncover the hidden burial site of an immortal dark power bent on galactic domination, and wacky hijinx ensue. It’s astonishing how close this comes to being a family-friendly movie[3]. You would have to change almost none of the plot, but man would you have to change a lot of the special effects.

My point is, you shouldn’t watch it with your kids. Even if it does have a little bit of a lesson right at the end. You should watch it if you like gross-out horror comedy or were ever kind of a dweeb, and if you’re not allergic to children in movies.

[1] PG for short, but since the movie is unrated, I guess they did not compromise on their artistic vision.
[2] Dodgeball but with a Calvinball-influenced ruleset
[3] There’s even a musical interlude in the middle, almost more of a music video, entitled Frig You. Which is a perfect encapsulation of how it’s almost family-friendly.

Boys from County Hell

Imagine a small town. The kind everyone of a certain age who lives there wants to escape from, and within a rounding error of nobody ever actually does. Imagine the young men and women of that certain age, yearning for freedom. Imagine they’re in Ireland, and their town’s claim to fame is Bram Stoker tourism.

Now imagine there’s a cairn in the middle of a field, and legend says someone, or something, is buried under it. Something you wouldn’t want to run into at night, if you take my meaning. Also, the land is being sold for development, and one of our Boys from County Hell sees helping on the construction of that development as his ticket out, even if it means knocking over a few old stones, you know?

Once all the setup was finished and the main action commenced, I simply could not stop feeling the influence of Shaun of the Dead. Yes, vampires instead of zombies, but between the exotic UK accents and the slapstick absurdity and the occasional gore… yeah, there’s no way it wasn’t an inspiration. I daresay this is… well, it’s not a successor at all. I liked it, but come on. Shaun is just one of the best. And I don’t think they were going for homage. But I daresay the movies are having the same conversation with the audience, and this one is worthy of being in that conversation.

Death of a Unicorn

Last night, I saw a sneak preview for Death of a Unicorn[1] at the Alamo Drafthouse[2], which comes out today or Friday and so I must quickly review, lest it all have been in vain. Unfortunately, despite the straightforward spoiler of the title, it is somewhat difficult to describe.

Okay. You know Mary Poppins? I’m sure there’s a better example, but I cannot think of one. Anyway, if you leave Mary Poppins out of the movie, it’s fundamentally a movie about a dad[3] who spends too much time at work focused on his career, when really all his kids want is more time with him, not the things he provides for them by working so much? Paul Rudd plays about as far against type as I can imagine in the role of that dad, and his nebbishy helplessness really makes it hard to believe, even though the character is written in a way where it could still work. It’s not to say he was bad in the role, just that I think the casting was too far of a stretch.

Anyway, he and his thankfully college-aged daughter Jenna Ortega are travelling to a corporate retreat where Rudd is hoping to get the promotion that will, after a few years, have them set up for life where she’ll never want for anything ever again, and it’s clear Ortega has heard this song and dance before, because she could not be more done with it. And this “will he or won’t he” family drama schtick might easily have been the entire movie, except that while driving through the nature preserve toward their destination, distracted by a fight and allergies, he plows into a little white horse crossing the road.

Well, okay, it’s not a horse.

A handful of other events ensue, and also the remainder of the cast is introduced, and now the movie is instead (also? probably also) about what the several characters will do with the situation that has fallen into their laps. Have they a panacea? A miracle that will change the world? A way to get rich beyond any dream of avarice? Or, based on Ortega’s research into a pretty cool series of real life tapestries, do they simply have a problem?

One of the genres into which this movie falls should provide a hint.

[1] Eagle-eyed subscribers to this site will note that I did not see Captain America 4, about which fact I have a pretty complicated set of emotions. But it’s probably indicative of something. Especially since the odds of another date night before it leaves theaters is…. low.
[2] Side note from the half hour of cool random film geekery: did you know that the Three Stooges made a movie (well, probably a short, but I don’t know for sure) about traveling to Venus to meet a unicorn, and also it was a musical, and also it was in 1959??? I knew Moe lived into the 1970s, but I had no idea they were still working that late! …and still in black and white that late, though if it were made for TV I guess that would not be weird after all.
[3] I wonder if they’ve ever made this movie about a mom. I think they have not.

Moana 2

Exciting milestone: we successfully took the kids out to see a movie! The boy was entranced from start to finish, and only had one or two moments of “nope this is too scary I need to yell ‘stop!'”, which is tolerable in the scheme of things, especially for a kid-friendly showing with nobody else in the theater. Likewise, the girl was entranced, but not so much that she wasn’t also mobile. However, the furthest away she got was two seats down and on the floor peeking through the next row’s seats. Which, again, entirely tolerable under the circumstances.

Anyway, the movie we saw was Moana 2, as the original is a pretty big hit in the house. I don’t know whether these movies are based on any specific Pacific Islander legends, or a mish-mash of them, or made up from whole cloth to look authentic to people who are willing to shell out money to Disney. (Probably the second one?) What I do know is a) they are convincing and b) they definitely have that quality of good fairy tales and mythologies where you want to know what will happen next and it doesn’t turn out the way you’d expect.

But what I’m really here to talk about is the music, and there this movie was disappointing, albeit not in the way you might expect. Yes, obviously, whoever they hired to do the lyrics did not live up to Lin Manuel Miranda. Yes, obviously, the song they put at the end of the credits is the song that in the movie most closely evokes the main song of the first movie. (But honestly, it’s a little too much like Into the Unknown from Frozen II for my taste.) There was maybe only one song I did think I’d be excited to hear when the kids are listening to the Disney music station on Sirius for years to come, honestly. But none of that is my point.

My point is, usually Disney movie sequels are aggressively mid, so you’re allowed to not care much about what the music even sounds like in the first place. But Moana 2 is not only actually pretty decent (except for the music), but it’s also clearly setting up a trilogy. And if I have to care about the movie, then why couldn’t it have had either comparably good music or else not been a musical in the first place?

Knowing the answer to both forks of that question does me absolutely no good.

The Fall Guy (2024)

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Here is 100% of what I remember about the ’80s TV show named The Fall Guy: it starred Lee Majors as a stuntman who I’m pretty sure did something besides movie stunts; best guess is, solved mysteries, for some reason? And also Heather Locklear or Thomas. And I had a lunchbox of that show in elementary school, which implies that I liked it quite a bit when I was like 6 or 7,

So when they made a movie of it earlier this year, I was not what you would call entirely sold on the idea of that movie. And yet here we are a few months later, and I saw it on the ‘Cock, and I thought, hey, why not? I haven’t watched a generic action movie in a while[1], right? But here’s the kicker: I really liked it!

So Ryan Gosling plays Colt Seaver, the kind of name you’d expect a college quarterback to have, and he’s a stunt guy best known for having a pretty enormous fall[2], such that he broke his back and got out of the game. But, in a grand tradition going back to Michael Corleone, or Obi-Wan Kenobi, or arguably even Brutus, someone pulled him back in. So now he’s trying to save the movie, solve the mystery, and get the girl, and if you stop there? Yes, it’s a generic action movie. But what I didn’t count on is that Gosling has a bonkers funny dry delivery, and that he and Emily Blunt have some pretty solid chemistry, and also that the stunts would in fact be pretty cool.

I’m not saying to see it on its own merits; it is not high art nor probably will it be a necessary pop culture touchstone. But I am saying to see it if you find yourself in the situation I was in, wanting to see some generic action movie because why not? It will absolutely exceed those expectations! Which sounds like not much until you remember how many of them don’t.

[1] No regrets, but in retrospect I should have watched 2 Fast 2 Furious, if I wanted a generic action movie. Kinda forgot those are on my list.
[2] Get it?

Deadpool and Wolverine

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On the one hand: you guys! I saw a movie in the theater! On opening night[1]! On the other hand, how does the only Marvel movie this year drop during the two month window when there’s no Alamo Drafthouse accessible to me? Ugh.

Nevertheless, we forge ahead. I just rewatched the two prior Deadpool movies, because this was coming[2]. (I should note that Deadpool 2 has grown in my estimation.) This movie is… well, it’s completely different in virtually every way from the two that preceded it. Wade doesn’t have a girlfriend, he isn’t inextricably tied to the X-Men (as a team nor as a franchise), and he is all in on becoming a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

In fact, the driving force of the movie is his attempt to join the Avengers, and what he’s willing to do once someone offers him a chance to accomplish exactly that. Naysayers will tell you that multiversal shenanigans are what is wrong with the MCU post-Thanos, but no, what is and has been wrong is the complete lack of any plan to tell an actual story. (Well, and the story they were not especially telling being rather mid.) I cannot tell you with any certainty that Ryan Reynolds just saved Marvel, but it’s the first Marvel movie I’ve watched in years now where I believe that this could all come together and actually work.

It would work better, of course, if he starts showing up in all the rest of the MCU movies, the way you had a Steve Rogers or a Tony Stark in basically 90% of the first three phases. But at least there’s a potential for something, now.

(Wolverine was cool too.)

[1] And then I fucked it up by taking nearly a week from when I started writing this review to actually finish it.
[2] Later, Disney+ suggested Logan, but I ran out of time to rewatch that. Alas.