Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on October 18th, 2017
- “You know what they say...the house always wins.”
- “What if we were the house?”
The House, a funny and oddly violent comedy starring Saturday Night Live alums Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler, has a great premise. Whereas most movies road trip their way to Sin City in order to cut loose, The House is about what happens when you import the glitz and glamor (and seediness) of Vegas into suburbia. The bad news is the filmmakers here don’t do much to develop their killer concept. The good news is The House is chock full of talented improvisers eager to pick up the slack.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on September 27th, 2017
“Ma'am, you need to understand that the president doesn't actually want you to do anything other than continue to be a woman — which you're doing a pretty okay job at.”
While Selina Meyer has done a passable job as a woman throughout the first five seasons of Veep, the vice president-turned-(temporary)president and her staggeringly incompetent staff have failed at pretty much everything else. The good news is Veep itself still does far more than an okay job of poking profane fun at the absurdity of Washington, D.C. and its swollen egos, even though season 6 finds Selina's squad more scattered than ever.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 23rd, 2017
Mixing science with comedy appears to not only be funny; it also has some serious staying power. It's been 10 years since Big Bang Theory first exploded on our television screens. The show continues to be one of the highest-rated comedy shows on television and seems to be going strong. The show takes the time and money to employ actual science consultants, so you might even learn something along the way. The secret to the show's success is that it's a situation comedy that really manages to be about the characters. All of that geek and science talk is background music to the main theme, which continues to be the characters and their relationships.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on September 22nd, 2017
“I don't want to be just guys in a house.”
Since its debut, Silicon Valley has brilliantly lampooned the tech industry by showing us both the proverbial “guys in a garage” and the self-important, aggressively eccentric billionaires obsessed with staying ahead of the curve. The show's central tension (and cruel joke) is that the ultimate endgame for the scrappy underdogs is to become...self-important, aggressively eccentric billionaires obsessed with staying ahead of the curve. Season 4 pushes the limit of the immoral behavior our alleged heroes will justify while continuing to deliver the best mix of brainy and bawdy laughs on television.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on September 1st, 2017
Everybody has their own group of favorite comics. I got plenty of classics that I always love to watch like Robin Williams, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, and so forth. But we all have that one comic that we do not readily talk about in open groups or even with family. However late at night, maybe a drink in, and when nobody is looking (at least your wife anyway) we turn on and laugh our posterior off with. For me, that’s Bobcat Goldthwait. The movie is of course, Shakes the Clown.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on August 30th, 2017
In the vein established by 21 Jump Street of taking a serious television series and transforming it into a comedy comes Baywatch. I’m sure everyone remembers Baywatch, possibly one of the most watched television series of all time that featured buxom ladies like Pamela Anderson and Yasmine Bleeth in tight swimsuits, running in slow motion. Transplanted for a moderate time period, this film adaptation features this generation’s hard bodies such as Zac Efron, Dwayne Johnson, and Alexandria Daddario (those eyes are hypnotic) taking on the established and iconic roles of Matt Brody, Mitch Buchannon, and Summer Quinn.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on August 18th, 2017
It’s not that hard to understand why Hollywood icon Goldie Hawn came out of semi-retirement to star in Snatched alongside comedian Amy Schumer. The South American-set mother/daughter comedy filmed in picturesque Hawaii, and Schumer was a hot box office commodity coming off the successful Trainwreck. (Holy oxymoron!) I just wish Hawn’s first movie in 15 years — a co-headlining gig, no less! — wasn’t such a wildly uneven effort. Because even though Snatched doesn’t fully utilize the talents of its legend, it’s apparent that Goldie’s still got it.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on August 18th, 2017
Reboots are all the rage in Hollywood, in case you haven't heard. Even a relatively low-key property like the Diary of a Wimpy Kid Cinematic Universe series isn't immune. Based on the wildly popular books by author Jeff Kinney, the first three movies featured the same core group of likable actors and become rock solid hits made on modest budgets. So you can understand why Fox would want to keep the series going, even if original star Zachary Gordon became too old to play the perpetually put-upon (and middle school-aged) Greg Heffley. This latest offering features an all-new cast, but too much of the same cringeworthy and juvenile humor; it'll make you wish someone had hidden the reset button from this franchise.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by John Delia on August 9th, 2017
Putting a twist on the original movie Going in Style, director Zach Braff does a good job of reviving the comedy for modern-day audiences. He turns up the laughter with memorable situation comedy and actors who can deliver some of the best one-liners. It’s a lot of fun for a date night or just a chance to get away from the humdrum to laugh a little. Retired and trying to scrape by on his retirement check, Joe Harding (Michael Caine) is about to hit an unexpected brick wall. With his mortgage in jeopardy from lack of timely payments and his granddaughter needing help with tuition, he’s in a very tight spot. His best friends Albert Garner (Alan Arkin) and Willie Davis (Morgan Freeman), who have been living together for the past 25 years to curb expenses, are about to be in the same boat.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on August 4th, 2017
“It's not all it's cut out to be...it's not about being on stage all the time. It's about the killing of time.”
There certainly hasn't been a shortage of sitcoms starring stand-up comedians. Many of them (Roseanne, Home Improvement, Everybody Loves Raymond) have grafted the comic's persona onto a family-friendly format. Even the shows that have depicted the life of a comic tend to take a surreal approach (Louie) or fast-forward to the part where the star is an established comedian (Seinfeld). HBO's Crashing stands out because it honestly (and painfully) depicts the struggle of an aspiring stand-up...and makes it look very, very funny.
