Tag Archives: comedy

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

Dead Like Me: Life after Death

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One upon a time, there was a television show in which the always enjoyable Mandy Patinkin (as Rube) wrangled a group of grim reapers, those randomly selected dead who remain alive to harvest the souls of the living as part of the cycle of life and death. Think the personification of Death, if it were a worldwide non-profit business organization instead of one guy in a robe, or perhaps girl wearing an ankh and black casualwear. Anyhow, Mandy was the district manager for this group of people assigned to handle accidental deaths in the Pacific Northwest, and the series opens on one such death of a teenage girl and focuses on, in addition to the reaping, Georgia Lass’s slow process of moving on with her life after death, and on her family’s slow process of coming to terms with their dead daughter. It was a good, funny, occasionally moving show.

In the curse of time, it was canceled, as tends to happen. And then, unexpectedly, a direct-to-video movie was made. Life after Death covers a couple of plotlines, one following Rube’s replacement as the regional boss and one following George’s assignment to reap a teenage boy who happens to be her sister’s boyfriend. The second plotline was everything that I would look for from the show when it was on, funny and moving all wrapped up in one well-written package. The first one, on the other hand, was meaningless from start to finish. There was no good explanation for or resolution of Rube’s disappearance. The remaining side characters all ditched their past motivations, in ways that are slightly believable, but only if I fill in the gaps for myself; the script did not explain adequately. And the resolution felt episodic rather than like its own story; that is, the situation at the end of the story was exactly the same as it had been at the beginning. Which I assume was an effort to leave a space for Mandy to return if another movie is made, because his absence was a glaring hole. But it still made what was half of a good movie turn into half of a good episode and half of a terrible one. The idea of a film doesn’t offend me, but if it’s only going to be a long episode, they should bring the series back instead. And write it the better way it used to be written!

Funny People

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As I mentioned quite recently, I’ve never seen a full-on Judd Apatow movie. Well, had never, at least. But, last night I caught Funny People. I can say without reservation that the movie had a significant number of funny people in it. Despite that, I’m pretty sure the goal of the title was irony. Because, as funny as it was, both in the stand-up segments and the main story segments, the bulk of the movie showed people wronging themselves and each other in ways both blunt and subtle, and only sporadically taking away hard lessons on how to be better. I think it had to be a comedy, not because Apatow and Seth Rogen and Adam Sandler are known for comedy, but because if you remove the regular doses of humor, Funny People would be slit-your-wrists cinema.

Rogen stars as his increasingly common, and increasingly likeable, schlubby everyman, this time an aspiring comedian trying and mostly failing to work his way into the Hollywood scene. His life changes dramatically when his set follows that of a famous comedian, played by Sandler, who has just learned he is probably going to die of [let’s say] Robert Jordan’s Disease and then flubs his first public stand-up routine in years, due to his dark mood. Rogen takes advantage of the situation to get some fairly cheap laughs at Sandler’s expense, whereupon the comedian decides to hire Rogen as a writer and assistant, and most importantly, as the sole bearer of the knowledge of Sandler’s illness and probable death. Occasional digressions into Rogen’s personal life are interesting from a character development perspective but mostly serve to remove focus from the chemistry between the old and young comedians, their growing friendship, and the lessons that each is taking from the other. And then, as the previews made perfectly clear, Sandler’s disease goes into unexpected remission, and he decides to embrace the second chance he has been given in pretty much the worst ways imaginable, while Rogen is left the impossible task of damage control.

It really is a very funny movie. I said that and I meant it. And a lot of the time, it’s funny like things that are funny, and that’s pretty sweet. But sometimes, it’s funny like watching a crash between a car full of clowns and a limo full of midgets, which crash has happened in full view of the Special Ed bus. You can’t look away and you know you’re going to hell, and there’s a voice inside you desperately trying to convince you that those kids are going to have nightmares for months, that midgets are totally people, and that clowns… well, okay, the clowns are probably better off. But you still choke out laughter, because you can’t not. That kind of funny, is, y’know, probably less good in large doses.

Land of the Lost

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Unemployment plus dollar movie plus having failed to catch a lot of my secondary summer movies equals a pretty good deal, right? The moreso, of course, because only paying $1.25 to see Land of the Lost feels a lot better, even in a substandard theater, than paying full price would have done. They did a pretty good job of hitting up on a couple of nostalgia-meters, and a halfway decent job at a plot, and an occasionally decent job at being funny. And then, of course, there was the rest of the job they did at being funny, which ranged from iffy to my being able to see what they were going for to solidly unfunny to scientifically offensive.[1]

The story, lifted straight from decades of Saturday morning kid television, revolves around the fate of [Dr.] Marshall, Will, and Holly, who, while on a routine expedition, accidentally go over a waterfall and through a rift in the space-time continuum, landing in a lost world populated by monkey people, lizard people, dinosaurs, and all kinds inexplicable modern detritus that has fallen through, one supposes, other rifts that were less waterfall-accessible. The chick was pretty hot if unfortunately lacking in story relevance otherwise, the Judd-Apatow-friendly actor was about as funny as you’d expect him to be[2], and Will Farrell… it’s like, when he’s playing a pompous blowhard, I appreciate his talent. But as soon as the physical comedy shows up, I just want him to stop, as quickly as possible. This movie, alas, had a healthy mix. For the record, despite me coming down mostly negatively, I did not at all feel like my childhood had been raped.

[1] I should note that that eight-year-olds in the audience did find the last part pretty damn funny, to my chagrin.
[2] This is true whether you are an anti-fan of Apatow or not, I expect. I still haven’t seen any of his movies yet, only the ancillary stuff that floats around in his wake, but I’m pretty okay with him, to date.

JCVD

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And then, towards the tail end of the weekend, I headed back to the Angelika[1] to watch another movie chock full of subtitles, JCVD. So there’s this guy, Jean-Claude Van Damme, right? Martial arts movie star from the late ’80s and throughout the ’90s but who has been somewhat less popular of late. And he has kind of a sad life; sure, the Belgians back home all adore him, but he’s losing custody of his daughter and his attempts to revive his career are frustrated at every turn, most recently by Steven Seagal’s willingness to ditch his ponytail in pursuit of a role.

And then, on a perfectly normal day, J.C.[2] runs into the post office on an errand and finds himself locked into a twisted hostage crisis whose events are told several times in parallel, with a little bit more information about the truth of the matter revealed each time. What action there is follows the gritty cop drama formula more closely than the fantasy action you’d expect out of one of his movies, and there’s a substantial amount of comedy along the way. But underneath all that lies a serious examination of celebrity and the many ways that people interact with it that would never have happened if it had been a different man trapped in the post office with the rest of the hostages and criminals. The police and negotiators, the hostages, the criminals, the witnesses to events immediately preceding the crisis, the crowd outside, each brings a spin, and in each case only because they recognize that guy from some movies they saw a few years ago.

Which is kind of the point. Not to judge any particular reaction, but to make us aware of how profoundly differently we do react to our celebrities. Hell, it even happened to me. Knowing full well what point the movie was making, I was still frustrated once or twice that Van Damme didn’t take one of the opportunities to fight back against the armed men, take control of the situation when he was one on one. Intellectually, who cares how good he is at karate? He’s still a middle-aged man with a gun being held on him, and he’s allowed to be scared and not want to be any more involved than he must. But I was still rolling my eyes at him because of my own expectations abut his abilities. All of which to say, it’s cool when something can make you laugh and think both. Plus, there really aren’t enough films in the tragicomic category, and it’s always nice to see one more.

[1] In both cases, there was only this one theater showing each movie within at least thirty, and probably more like hundreds of, miles.
[2] This is probably the only movie I can think of where the lead character having these initials is not a sly reference to a messiah; and then again, the case could be made…

Sex Drive (2008)

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Awesomely, I got to go to another screening yesterday after work. Well, technically, after leaving work early with broken glasses and a giant headache, and more closely after 750ml of 9.0% alcohol in the form of a pretty tasty Belgian, Allegash Tripel Reserve.[1] My point, though, is that movie sneak previews are awesome, even if I mostly only get to go to the ones for comedies; maybe more awesome for that, as I would often skip them if I was paying.

Every preview I’ve seen for Sex Drive has reminded me deeply of John Cusack’s The Sure Thing, enough so that when I saw it was based on the familiarly-titled book All the Way, I just assumed it was the same source material. But that book turns out to be modern and the movie an apparent straight port of it. So I guess not. But still, they look very much alike, y’know?

The plot is probably exactly what you think it is, preview-unseen. Sensitive Everykid drives across the country to meet an internet hottie, accompanied by his worldly evil-angel-on-the-shoulder friend and the unrealistically hot girl-next-door who somehow isn’t surrounded by guys, but who nevertheless only sees the lead character as a friend; plus, unsurprisingly, he has hopeless feelings for her. Hijinx and life lessons ensue! And honestly, there’s not a lot to recommend it above any other movie of this type; it’s funny, and that’s enough. (Also, there is one thing to recommend it above the herd: Seth Green makes a seriously awesome turn as a wise-cracking Amish man. Easily worth the price of a paid admission, much less mine.)

[1] Because my bar is right down the street from the theater. That, my friends, is convenience. (It turns out that I like having a bar, which is a surprise to me, but there it is. I spent most of my time there reading, which possibility may explain the appeal.)