I am serious…and don’t call me Shirley.
In The Nice Guys, two private investigators, one licensed (Ryan Gosling) and one unlicensed (Russell Crowe), go after the same lost woman who has strange ties with the adult film industry.
Shane Black directs this 1970s crime noir comedy. The film visually feels like a Continue reading The Nice Guys (2016) Movie Review
Mac and Kelly Radner (Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne) sell their house under contractual escrow, so they must ensure that nothing in their neighborhood screws up their chances of moving out. Three college freshman (Chloe Grace Moretz, Kiersey Clemons, and Beanie Feldstein) ditch the inherent misogyny of Greek life by creating their own sorority conveniently located next door to the Radners.
This is Neighbors 2, and, based on its premise, it is Continue reading Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016) Movie Review
Sam Raimi’s Darkman is an early superhero film in which scientist Peyton Westlake (Liam Neeson) is brutally attacked and left for dead by the mob. Heavily scarred and bandaged, the faceless Westlake becomes the Darkman, and, using his scientific research on artificial skin, assumes others’ identities in order to exact revenge on his attackers.
This film, in spite of being inescapably ’90s in aesthetic, is an Continue reading Darkman (1990) Movie Review
Note: This in an in-depth article on Anti-Comedy and Adult Swim programming. If I mention a given show, short film, or feature film, there is a strong chance that I will be giving spoilers for that video, so be cautious. Also, this is a multi-page article; the links to subsequent pages sometimes get lost at the bottom of the page.
Anti-Humor. Anti-Comedy. Meta-Humor. Non-Comedy. Whatever hyphenate you want to use to describe the brand of comedy that is purposefully not funny or otherwise lacking in traditional comic structure.
Anti-Comedy, as I will refer to it throughout the rest of this article, is a highly divisive form of comedy (my fascination with the divisive is well founded). Some dismiss it as destructive to quality comedy or simply lazy. Others can’t digest it as something humorous or necessary.
Late-night television programming block Adult Swim, launched in 2001 as a complement to Cartoon Network’s children’s programming, has harnessed these alternative forms of comedy to seeming success. With shows like Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, The Eric Andre Show, and the short film series of Infomercials, Adult Swim has Continue reading Adult Swim, Anti-Comedy, and Cringe Humor: What’s the Appeal?
The opening shots of Entertainment are largely static. The Comedian (Gregg Turkington, essentially playing in this film a fictionalized version of himself and his comedic alter-ego Neil Hamburger), stands in an airplane fuselage, looking down. He watches as a clown, Eddie the Opener (Tye Sheridan), prepares for a set at a prison. He looks on dour-faced as the clown “wows” the crowd of prisoners by simply bouncing a ball and clapping his hands.
The first spoken dialogue in the film comes from a tour operator who encourages The Comedian and others to “by all means, go ahead and wander.” Yet the film does the opposite. Continue reading Entertainment (2015) Movie Review
Rick Alverson’s The Comedy is not a comedy. It is an anti-comedy. A satire of a self-destructive generation gazing on their own broken world. The film opens on a group of people, mostly slightly overweight men, drinking and dancing, spitting beer and stripping nude. This is a commonplace setting for this group of “friends.”
The film stars Tim Heidecker of Tim and Eric fame. Comedy partner Eric Wareheim co-stars, and their presence in the film in one instance is Continue reading The Comedy (2012) Movie Review
After his girlfriend breaks up with him, Rell (Jordan Peele, also co-writer) comes across cute kitten Keanu, who proves to be the saving grace from his post-breakup blues.
Rell gets unnaturally attached to Keanu, to the point that when the cat is kidnapped (dare I say cat-napped?) by gangster outfit the 17th St. Blips, he and cousin Clarence (Keegan-Michael Key) must infiltrate the gang and literally save the cat.
The lion’s share of comedy in Keanu derives from Continue reading Keanu (2016) Movie Review
Age of Cannibals follows two German business consultants on a business trip in Lagos, Nigeria. While moving about their hotel, they try to convince a businessman to move his resources from India to Pakistan, deal with a new, young co-worker, and brashly handle cultural differences.
Stylistically, the films is fairly cut and dry. There is little out of the ordinary, save for Continue reading Age of Cannibals (Zeit der Kannibalen) (2014) Movie Review
In Cosmos, the final film from director Andrzej Zulawski, failing law student Witold (Jonathan Genet) takes a vacation in a renter’s home. Disillusioned, he abandons his studies to pursue writing a novel that mirrors his time at the house. But his time in the house proves to be psychologically taxing.
Strange visual motifs dominate the film. Bugs crawl over food, hanged animals appear intermittently, one character is Continue reading Cosmos (2015) Movie Review
When deciding what movie to see at the theaters Thursday night, I compared new releases on Google Trends. Of the new releases this weekend, Eye in the Sky stole the show in terms of search traffic proportions, God is Not Dead 2 had meager traffic, and Meet the Blacks was a goose egg across the board. Seemingly off the map of Google searches, I was intrigued, and decided to table Eye in the Sky for my Friday matinee. The question is, then, was it a worthwhile choice?
Meet the Blacks is a horror comedy spoof a la Scary Movie following the Black family as they move into their new lavish home in Beverly Hills. And, of course, they also have to deal with Continue reading Meet the Blacks (2016) Movie Review
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