Tag: comedy

Screening Room: ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’

On By chrisbarsantiIn DVD - FilmLeave a comment

holygrail1Back in 1975, Monty Python was just starting to get a name for themselves outside of the UK. That was the year their first proper film landed in theaters, and comedy just wasn’t the same after that. Killer rabbits and all.

My review of the 40th anniversary DVD / Blu-ray release of Monty Python and the Holy Grail is at PopMatters:

Shot by a ramshackle Dadaist comedy troupe over a chaotic and fairly drunken month in Scotland in 1974, right around the time that their Flying Circus TV show was coming to an end, and funded primarily by having some rock star friends of the troupe (Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin) throw in a few thousand pounds each, the film should have been one of those debacles where everybody wishes they had just packed it up and retired instead. Among the extras on the anniversary edition—including outtakes and some newly unearthed animations by Terry Gilliam—is an on-the-set BBC piece where Gilliam seems more chuckle-headed college joker than co-director, John Cleese barely able to contain his irritation with being directed and all the last-minute rewrites, and set mechanics so primitive they could be out-done by an early Doctor Who episode…

Here’s the original trailer:

Screening Room: ‘Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-Documentary, Publishing / Media1 Comment
'National Lampoon': Funny people (Magnolia)
‘Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon’: Funny people (Magnolia)

Natlamp73Remember magazines? National Lampoon was one of the best. Beyond serving as something of a thinking man’s Mad, it also fostered that upswell of talent coming out of the Chicago comedy improv scene in the 1970s and midwifed them to stardom at Saturday Night Live. Sure, that ultimately led to Coneheads the movie, but we can probably lay that more at Lorne Michaels’ feet.

Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon is playing now in limited release; my review is at PopMatters:

People who only know National Lampoon as that odd possessive sitting atop posters for Animal House andVacation might be surprised by some details provided by Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon. They might not have realized the depth of talent the comedy magazine cultivated. Or they might be surprised learn this monthly publication had a circulation of one million. Or that Chevy Chase was once considered a comedy genius…

Here’s the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘Sleeping with Other People’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment
Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis try to resist each other's charms in 'Sleeping with Other People' (IFC Films)
Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis try to resist each other’s charms in ‘Sleeping with Other People’ (IFC Films)

Although Trainwreck garnered all the headlines for this year’s explicit woman-oriented edgy romantic comedy, Leslye Headland’s Sleeping with Other People fulfills a lot of the promise that that Amy Schumer/Judd Apatow collaboration couldn’t quite deliver on.

Sleeping with Other People is playing now. My review is at PopMatters:

A deconstructive sweet-and-sourball of a romantic comedy, Sleeping With Other People seems made for the therapeutically inclined. To that end, it doesn’t quite deliver the story we might expect from its initial meet-cute. Lainey (Alison Brie) and Jake (Jason Sudeikis) do make their way to a big dance number and some climactic soul-baring, but Leslye Headland’s movie doesn’t balance out emotional payoffs for everybody. Both partners learn lessons, but neither quite gets what they want…

Here’s the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘Trainwreck’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment
Amy Schumer and Bill Hader in 'Trainwreck' (Universal).
Amy Schumer and Bill Hader in ‘Trainwreck’ (Universal).

After midwifing Lena Dunham’s Girls onto HBO, Judd Apatow is directing the off-key work of another comic of the moment. In Trainwreck, Amy Schumer plays basically the girl of her standup: a self-obsessed disaster. But will she find true love?

Trainwreck opens wide tomorrow. My review is at PopMatters:

… the film focuses on Amy (played by Schumer), another variation on the stock character from her TV show. Narcissistic and cutting, she’s racked up several lifetimes’ worth of one-night stands, terrified of commitment, and inclined to over-share. While the character tends toward dirty humor, she’s not so much intentionally shocking, a la Sarah Silverman, but rather, so self-involved that she’s unconcerned with how anyone else might take her revelations, as when she compares sleeping with her pseudo-boyfriend Steven (John Cena) to “having sex with an ice sculpture”…

Now Playing: ‘Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment
Rinko Kikuchi goes to the Great White North in 'Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter' (Amplify)
Rinko Kikuchi goes to the Great White North in ‘Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter’ (Amplify)

Do you like Fargo? Chances are, even if so, you don’t know it as well as the titular anti-heroine of the Zellner brothers’ chilly odyssey of quirk, Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter. It might be one of the first great films of 2015.

kumiko-posterKumiko, the Treasure Hunter is playing now here and there. My review is at PopMatters:

She’s alone and obsessive, and her particular object of obsession is the Coen brothers’ film Fargo. Sitting night after night in her dingy apartment with only her adorable rabbit Bunzo for company, she pores over a worn-out VHS tape with Talmudic fervency, keeping a notebook full of scribbled clues that only make sense to her. Because of Fargo‘s famous opening epigraph—“This is a true story. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987”—she takes it as a faithful transcribing of reality. That’s why she keeps re-watching the scene where Carl (Steve Buscemi) buries the suitcase of cash by a fence in a snowy field. In Kumiko’s mind, she just needs to get to Minnesota…

Here’s the trailer:

New in Theaters: ‘Zero Motivation’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - Festivals, Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment
Nelly Tagar tries to be all she can be in 'Zero Motivation' (Zeitgeist Films)
Nelly Tagar tries to be all she can be in ‘Zero Motivation’ (Zeitgeist Films)

The new Israeli film Zero Motivation—which played the film festival circuit earlier in the year—is a smart, dour comedy set in a military office where little gets done. The military satire is punched up with the occasional flash of surrealism; it’s a fantastic mix.

Zero Motivation is opening this week in limited release. I reviewed it at the Tribeca Film Festival for PopMatters:

On a base that feels as removed from any actual war as Sgt. Bilko, the human resources office is a den of sloth and ineptitude. Commanding officer Rama (Shani Klein) is frazzled trying to get any of the women in her command to care even remotely about their assignments. Her best friends Daffi (Nelly Tagar) and Zohar (Dana Ivgy) can’t be bothered to do much besides complain and play Minesweeper, as they all survive in a casually sexist division, where the men are assigned all the combat roles and so ascend to higher ranks, and female soldiers fetch coffee and bicker…

Here’s the trailer:

New in Theaters: ‘Horrible Bosses 2’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment
'Horrible Bosses 2' (New Line Cinema)
‘Horrible Bosses 2’ (Warner Bros.)

There wasn’t much to know about the comedy Horrible Bosses beyond that it featured three guys (Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day) who hated their bosses and wanted revenge. There isn’t much else to know about the sequel, except that it’s not about plot so much as watching three great comic actors bicker and squall.

Horrible Bosses 2 opened this week and will be playing pretty much everywhere for at least a couple weeks for anybody already sick of Oscar contender films. My review is at PopMatters.

Here’s the trailer:

Now Playing: ‘The Trip to Italy’ is Highly Unnecessary Comedy, But Not in a Bad Way

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Graphic NovelsLeave a comment
Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan in 'The Trip to Italy' (IFC Films)
Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan in ‘The Trip to Italy’ (IFC Films)

Two comics playing slightly tweaked versions of themselves, ravishing Italian scenery, phenomenal food, recitations of Shelley’s poetry, Tom Hardy impressions. That’s about all one needs to know about Michael Winterbottom’s nervy, gadabout sequel to the 2010 road comedy The Trip.

The Trip to Italy is playing now in highly limited release. My review is at Film Racket:

The Trip to Italy’s total lack of necessity has little bearing on its enjoyability. There’s nothing wrong with watching a pair of lyrical, spry, and acid-tongued comics lashing each other with barbed commentary while enjoying the operatic grandeur of a foodie junket through Italy’s more salubrious and sun-splashed districts. Does it matter that they’re not bringing much new to the party?…

You can see the trailer here:

Also, here you can check out one of the better clips: Coogan and Brydon on The Dark Knight Rises:

New in Theaters: ‘Obvious Child’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment
Jake Lacy, Jenny Slate, Gaby Hoffman in 'Obvious Child' (A24)
Jake Lacy, Jenny Slate, and Gaby Hoffman in ‘Obvious Child’ (A24)

obviouschild-posterIn yet another attempt to subvert the romantic comedy—a genre that remains essentially dead despite all Cameron Diaz’s efforts—Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child throws a lot into the mix: pregnancy, awkward relationships, and millennial insecurity.

Obvious Child opens in limited release tomorrow. My review is at Film Racket:

A fresh-faced, faux-messy romantic comedy with a refreshingly economic take on the usual meet-cute / separation crisis / resolution arc, Obvious Child is like many tales birthed in purportedly edgy Brooklyn. Yes, it spends its time mostly in Williamsburg’s creative demimonde and the operative comedic style is layered in irony like so many smothering quilts. But the story itself, once you get past the frank talk about abortion and bodily functions, is just as much love at first sight as a pastel-colored confection starring Katherine Heigl and set across the river in a midtown fashion magazine. Only the soundtrack is better, there’s three times as many solid laughs, and it’s about 20 blessed minutes shorter….

You can see the trailer here:

Now Playing: ‘Bad Words’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment

Jason Bateman has been crafting comedy genius for so long in front of the camera that it’s perhaps inevitable he would eventually move behind it as well. Bad Words is his directorial debut, a promising and blessedly short if wildly uneven hour-and-a-half of rude comedy about a misanthropic adult who crashes a kids’ spelling bee.

Bad Words is still playing just about everywhere. My review is at PopMatters:

Guy Trilby is custom-made for Bateman’s perfected admixture of laconic sharpness. Instead of the more explosive brand of destabilizers favored by US comedy, your John Belushis and Will Ferrells, Bateman upends the norms of this closed micro-society of over-schooled spelling quants by having Trilby simply plant himself there and refusing to move or explain his motivations. Occasionally he’ll try to get a leg up in competition by upsetting his preteen opponents with some verbal guerrilla warfare. But in the main, Trilby is a stoic pillar of nasty. (Having played the put-upon and exasperated nice guy in everything from Arrested Development to Identity Thief, Bateman gets some mileage here out of going so far to the dark side.) He’s Bartleby, and will not be moved…

Here’s the trailer:

New in Theaters: ‘Prince Avalanche’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New1 Comment
Emile Hirsch and Paul Rudd get on each other's nerves in 'Prince Avalanche'.
Emile Hirsch and Paul Rudd get on each other’s nerves in ‘Prince Avalanche’.

prince-avalanche-posterDavid Gordon Green has carved out an odd career for himself in Hollywood, switching back and forth between artful mood pieces (George Washington) and stoner f/x comedies (Your Highness). His newest comedy, Prince Avalanche, tries to thread the needle between those two opposites and comes up a winner.

Prince Avalanche is playing now. My review is at Film Journal International:

In David Gordon Green’s new comedy Prince Avalanche, Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch star as Alvin and Lance, both slackers in highly different ways. It’s 1987 in the great state of Texas and the two guys are spending the summer working in a park that was recently burned out by a massive fire. Their assignment is the prosaic stuff of road crews: repainting yellow stripes and putting in reflectors. Alvin, who fancies himself a thinker a, sees it as a time for self-sufficiency and self-reflection. However, Lance, who would be defined as your garden-variety “doofus,” is quietly losing his mind due to the lack of, well, women. Something’s got to give…

Here’s the trailer:

 

Now Playing: ‘Girl Most Likely’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment
Kristen Wiig and Annete Bening in 'Girl Most Likely'.
Kristen Wiig and Annete Bening in ‘Girl Most Likely’.

girlmostlikelyposter1Every so often a former SNL performer finds their way to a career outside sketch comedy. Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, and so on. But there’s an even longer list of those who found that their talents just didn’t translate well into different mediums. One new addition to that list just might be Kristen Wiig, whose new comedy Girl Most Likely is out in theaters now. To her credit, she’s far from the worst thing about the the movie.

My review is at Film Racket; here’s part of it:

As the star of the flimsy, dreary debacle that is Girl Most Likely, Kristen Wiig joins the august pantheon of modern actresses forced to debase and humiliate themselves for ninety minutes or so of pop-song-scored OMG embarrassments. Her Imogene is another in a long line of female screen neurotics who are brought low by an inability to get out of their own head before being rescued by a patient, doe-eyed, and dark-haired dreamboat with a Crest Whitening smile. Michelle Morgan’s manic script — which cruises along on derivative and mean-spirited cliche before detouring into are-they-joking inanity in the last section — barely situates Imogene before it starts to destroy her; this may be an irrelevant problem, though, since she’s such an unpleasant piece of work that more time in her company wouldn’t have created more sympathy…

You can see the trailer here:

 

New in Theaters: ‘Blue Jasmine’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment
Cate Blanchett teetering on the brink in 'Blue Jasmine'
Cate Blanchett teetering on the brink in ‘Blue Jasmine’

SONY-JUOS-01_Onesheet_Layout 1Woody Allen’s newest comedy of social status and anxiety, Blue Jasmine, had a quiet launch this week, almost as though the studio thought that it would sell itself. It might not be his funniest movie in some time but it does feature the best lead performance that he’s directed in years. That would be Cate Blanchett, stepping out of Galadriel’s diaphanous glow and tackling a real-world character with an almost frightening intensity.

My full review is at Film Racket; here’s part:

Woody Allen knows that sometimes it’s best just to throw characters into the deep end and see if audiences want to swim with them. By the time we meet his newest creation, Jasmine (Cate Blanchett), she’s in full meltdown, barely holding it together with Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and enough self-delusion to power a third-party presidential campaign…

You can see the trailer here:

New in Theaters: ‘Violet and Daisy’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment
Alexis Bledel and Saoirse Ronan get all giggly before their next hit in 'Violet and Daisey'
Alexis Bledel and Saoirse Ronan get all giggly before their next hit in ‘Violet and Daisey’

VIOLETDAISY_FINAL_POSTER1A few years back, Geoffrey Fletcher wrote the screenplay for Lee Daniels’ scorching tale of family dysfunction Precious. Now Fletcher is directing his own script for another wildly over-the-top story, only this time it’s supposed to be an archly ironic assassin comedy.

Violet and Daisy is playing now in very very limited release. My review ran at Film Journal International; here’s part:

Fletcher starts off strong, with a pair of teenage-looking girls staring despondently at a poster announcing the cancellation of a concert by their hero, Barbie Sunday. Violet (Alexis Bledel) and Daisy (Saoirse Ronan) go to work anyway. We next see them walking down the street carrying pizza boxes and dressed up as nuns. Chattering brightly, they knock on an apartment door. Once it’s opened, the two start blazing away with semi-automatic pistols. Several dead guys later, the two are revealed to be hit-girls-for-hire working for some never-seen crime boss who apparently needs people rubbed out just about every other day…

You can watch the trailer here:

New on DVD: ‘Identity Thief’

On By chrisbarsantiIn DVD - FilmLeave a comment
identitythief1
Melissa McCarthy and her terrifying hair in ‘Identity Thief’

identity-thief-dvd-cover-45Seth Gordon’s Identity Thief hit theaters back in February with low expectations that were easily improved upon. In short, it’s a better-than-it-could-be comedy that’s funny enough but could have easily stood to be 10-15 minutes shorter, no matter how much one appreciates the shared genius of Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy.

It’s available today on Blu-ray and DVD.

My full review ran at Film Journal International, here’s part of it:

Jason Bateman (who also has a producing credit) plays Sandy Patterson, a milquetoast mid-level worker at a Denver financial firm. He discovers that his identity has been stolen by a Florida woman who’s been maxing out his credit cards and even got arrested (as him). In one of those only-in-the-movies wrinkles, he decides to drive to Florida and bring the woman back to clear his name. The problem is that when he gets down there, Diana (Melissa McCarthy) has no intention of helping him out. She’d rather punch him in the throat and make a wheezing run for it…

You can watch the trailer here: