Category Archives: Comedy

Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom

Leave a reply

Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom     5 stars

With the release of Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom, from the very British Aardman Animations, directed by Steve Cox and Matthew Walker, we can officially say that it is not too early for Halloween themed movies. Believe it or not, this is only the third in the series of full-length animated movies that stars the mischievous sheep, Shaun and the flock of adventurous sheep who cause no end of havoc on the Soggy Bottom farm and surroundings. The previous outing was way back in 2019 with A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon. These movies are done using puppets and elaborate sets that are photographed in a painstaking process of stop motion animation that takes years to produce. This time around it is harvest season and the sheep are preparing for Halloween having planted their own patch of pumpkins. (Yes, Sheep like Halloween too.) Unfortunately, through a series of pratfalls by Farmer John and interference by a clothesline eating goat, the pumpkins are destroyed, thus denying the sheep their chance to create jack-o-lanterns. (Notice that the Halloween tradition has crossed the Atlantic and entered British culture.) But there is an answer to their misfortune. Creative genius Shaun has a book titled Home-Made Science and endeavors to use the formulas there to create a growing chemical in a very elaborate lab in the farm’s windmill that will allow new pumpkins to grow overnight! The problem is that farmer John has found the chemical and applies it to his balding head, thinking it will give him renewed vitality and allow him to attract the attention of a female veterinarian who lives in town. Only, Shaun’s chemical works too well causing the pumpkins to grow to immense size and the farmer’s hair to quickly grow and completely cover his head and body with orange hair! Thus, the Beast of Mossy Bottom terrorizes the town while Farmer John appears to go missing. So, all sorts of troubles befall the inhabitants leading to hilarious stunts with the sheep and Bitzer, the farm dog, as they attempt to deal with the new threat. It’s all fun that almost any audience will love. And at only one hour and twenty minutes in length it should not wear out on the youngest viewers. There are a few references that only adults will get, including similarities to the Frankenstein movies and Psycho. Shaun’s mad scientist costume, the elaborate Rube-Goldberg style lab that Shaun creates and the vengeful townsfolk are especially amusing. In the film genre of purely visual sight gags, nothing tops what Aardman Animations can dish out. I hope that Shaun the Sheep will brighten more of our days with slap-stick antics.

The Old Man & the Gun

Leave a reply

The Old Man & the Gun                 4 ½ stars

There is yet another fine movie showing in the theaters now. That is The Old Man & the Gun featuring two long time legends of Hollywood, Robert Redford and Sissy Spacek.  It is a movie driven by the two main characters that really doesn’t have a lot going on.  It is based on the true story of Forrest Tucker, a convict who in the early eighties escaped from prison and carried out a string of bank robberies at age seventy that confounded the police.  What really drives the movie is Redford’s charm and his smile.  The most enjoyable parts are when he is talking with or charming Jewel (Spacek) while she thoroughly enjoys his company while believing little of what he tells her about himself.  Casey Affleck contributes to rounding out the film as he portrays the Texas lawman trying to track down Tucker and his Over the Hill gang as the crime spree spreads from one state after another.  Redford has said that this is his last picture as an actor.  I don’t know if that is true, but The Old Man & the Gun is a brilliant send off in any case.

Buddy

Leave a reply

Buddy   4 stars

Do you have fond memories of those children’s TV shows from the eighties and nineties of adult size colorful characters and children singing happy tunes about learning, getting along with others and doing chores? Or maybe your memories are not so pleasant? Such shows are the basis of Casper Kelly’s Buddy, a horror movie that features a children’s TV show from the nineties that stars a full-size bright orange unicorn set in a colorful house and yard together with several children and a few other adult characters. This movie was featured at The Sundance Film Festival this year, but I had not seen it until it opened in theaters. As the film opens the kids and Buddy (voiced by Keegan-Michael Key of Wonka and Only Murders in the Building) are having a good time singing “You Love Buddy, yes you do.” But later when one of the kids refuses to obey Buddy’s orders, a violent encounter occurs off camera and the child is mysteriously absent later. (The other kids are told that he was called to go to Diamond City.) Things escalate with each new episode as Buddy violently kills off another character or child in stark fashion when things don’t go his way, until the remaining children run away into the woods toward Diamond City in scenes reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz. I cannot express how impressed I was with the acting of the children as they displayed artificial happiness switching to suspicion and fear. Later, the setting changes to a family at home in the present. The parents are Grace (Cristin Milioti of How I Met Your Mother) and Ben (Topher Grace of That 70’s Show and Spider-Man 3) who have two boys in a seemingly normal home life. Only Grace has a very uneasy feeling about the situation, expressing to Ben that she believes that they had a third child that they had forgotten. Later, the strange Buddy TV show appears on their TV screen, and Grace is pulled into the TV and added to the cast of the show. Thus, we become aware that Buddy is snatching kids from their homes to be on the show with their memories and those of their families of their past lives being erased. Without giving too much away, the confrontation between humans and orange, plushy control freak escalates to an all-out bloody battle where only one side will survive. Other voice actors include Michael Shannon (The Shape of Water), Patton Oswalt (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty), Eric Bauza (Coyote vs. Acme) and Devon Hawkes Ludlow, noted puppeteer. I knew this was going to be a weird one when I went in. Despite the dark premise, I was impressed by the well-constructed story it told and its lesson about trusting your instincts. Although it has bloody scenes, the violence is obviously fake and meant to amuse. It would be appropriate for tweens and older kids and silly horror loving adults to see the movie, but I advise against taking smaller children. While watching it I couldn’t help but think of how fun it must have been for the child actors to be in such an odd horror movie. Other comedy horror movies I have seen of this genre are Krazy House where a sitcom about a suburban family is invaded by violent Russian gangsters and Little Monsters where a young man and a kindergarten teacher must defend a kindergarten class on a field trip from marauding zombies. All of these were available at Sundance.

Mid90s

Leave a reply

Mid90s                 3 ½ stars

Mid90s is the first writing and directing effort by actor Jonah Hill who is known for early comic roles like Superbad, and then later more serious movies like Moneyball.  Mid90s is about a young 13 year old boy, Stevie (played by Sunny Suljik) who lives with his single mother and older brother Ian (Lucas Hedges).  Stevie is often abused by brother Ian and doesn’t have any friends so he is naturally drawn to a group of older boys who hang out at a local sporting goods store and spend their time skate boarding at a popular skate board park.  These older boys (Ray, Rueben, Fuckshit and Fourth Grade) give little Stevie the attention he wants and introduce him to cigarettes, booze and girls.  Though they are not really great model influences, Stevie gets a real connection with them.  There is nothing particularly ground breaking or especially original about Hill’s film and it is very short at less than one and a half hours; however, most of it seems real as the characters appear like real people.  The ending felt a little predictable, but if this movie is any indication we can expect some interesting projects coming from Jonah Hill in the future.

Defending Your Life

Defending Your Life         4 ½ stars

I recently took in Defending Your Life, the 1991 Albert Brooks movie about an advertising exec who is killed in an auto accident and ends up in an afterlife where the new arrivals must face a sort of trial and defend how they lived their life. Brooks is quite the master at writing material that is bitingly funny, taking aim at the selfish nature of people. Unfortunately, of the seven movies that Brooks has written and/or directed, I can’t recall seeing any of them before; (though I do remember seeing the shorts he created for Saturday Night Live in the seventies.) In Life, Daniel finds that instead of going to heaven he is in an existence between lives in Judgment City, a place he shares with many other recently departed souls. The place is nothing like how the afterlife is depicted in many other movies with clouds and angels with wings, but instead resembles corporate America with spotless hotels, restaurants and trams to carry the inhabitants to various destinations. The staff is polite and makes sure that the arrivals are comfortable. In Judgment City the subjects are assigned a defense attorney and a prosecutor and face a trial where their lives are reviewed and a judgment is rendered based on whether they have done enough to face their fear during their lives and thus either advance to the next level of existence or be returned to Earth where they will live another life. In the more advanced levels people learn to use an ever-increasing portion of their brain. Daniel is assigned to Bob Diamond (Rip Torn) for his defense and to Lena (Lee Grant) as his prosecutor and must view segments of his life showing what he did in certain stressful situations. Both sides argue their case in front of the judges. During his stay, Daniel meets a young, sweet woman, Julia (Meryl Streep) who is also facing trial and quickly forms a bond with her. (It does seem odd to Daniel that Julia has scored a much nicer hotel than he did.) Thus, besides being an imaginative take on the afterlife, the movie is a romantic comedy as well. Albert Brooks has created a movie that is low key, very funny and conveys a good message about how people live their lives and try to meet expectations. And even better, it has a happy ending that will make everyone feel good about it. Apparently, Defending Your Life is much less harsh than Brooks’ other movies, especially Lost in America. But I haven’t seen them so have to take the critics word for it. I do know that you can’t go wrong with this movie, so I highly recommend it.

Kinds of Kindness

Kinds of Kindness                             2 stars

If you are a big fan of movies like me you remember the unusual movies made by Yorgos Lanthimos, the Greek filmmaker. His most memorable movie, Poor Things, in 2023 featured Emma Stone as a sort of Frankenstein monster created from body parts by an eccentric doctor played by Willem Dafoe. Last year (2025) he made Bugonia, also starring Stone as a woman taken prisoner by a fanatic played by Jesse Plemons who believed her to be an alien from space. Both of those films are known for their extremely bizarre plots and surprise endings. In between there was another lesser-known film that I finally watched called Kinds of Kindness. It stars Stone, Plemons and Dafoe as well as Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau and Mamoudou Athie. This film consists of three separate tragic, comedic stories all of which are very strange and meant to say something about human behavior. None of them really exhibits aspects of the title as far as I could tell. All of them feature death in some way and are hard to watch at times. In the first of the three stories, Robert (Plemons) is a man whose whole life is controlled by a father figure, Raymond (Dafoe) who provides his house, his job, tells him who he can marry and whether he can have children. In return Robert must do as Raymond says and that includes trying to kill a man by colliding with him with his car. Robert tries to follow this request but is unsuccessful. At the hospital, Robert meets Rita (Stone) and finds that she is also under the control of Raymond. Since Robert is unwilling to make a second effort at the killing, Raymond withdraws his support as this is a sign that Robert does not love him anymore. This all leads to a shocking ending that I won’t reveal. The other two stories are equally strange and brutal. There are bizarre death scenes as well as sex scenes in unexpected circumstances. The movie is described as a triptych fable using dark comedy to describe human nature. They all use the same group of actors, all in different roles. The actors are certainly talented, but some of the dialogue seems to be purposely stilted which is Lanthimos’ style. Though I liked his other movies, I found Kinds of Kindness to be too weird for my taste. I haven’t found any new planned productions from him in the works but look forward to any that turn up. I do recommend that you go back and find The Favourite from 2018. It stars Emma Stone, Olivia Colman and Rachel Weisz and was one of the best movies of that year. But you should skip Kinds of Kindness.

Toy Story 5

Toy Story 5                          3 stars

No, I still haven’t seen either of the two major blockbusters of the summer, but I did finally see Toy Story 5, the fifth installment of Pixar’s flagship franchise that started back in the nineties. After four of these popular animated movies that chronicle the adventures of Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Jessie and Bo Peep, one might ask do we need another one. How can the story be expanded beyond what has already been told? The answer is, of course we do, so that more money can be made for the studio and all the others involved. Back in Toy Story 4 the familiar toys have been separated into two groups, one is led by cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack) and are the toys belonging to an introverted child, Bonnie. The second are the abandoned toys that Woody the cowboy (Tom Hanks) keeps together. Little Bonnie is a lonely girl without any friends. She would like to play with the twins next door but is too shy to talk to them. Besides they don’t play with toys. Instead, they spend their time playing on their tech devices, called LiliPad, where kids can talk online and watch videos. This is the new villain that has entered the Toy Story universe and threatens to destroy everything special about childhood and kid’s toys. In order to get Bonnie connected with other kids, her parents get her a new Lilipad (Greta Lee). This leads to a sleepover that goes horribly wrong for Bonnie and creates havoc in the toy collection. Some of the toys even get placed in storage in the garage! Now taking center stage, Jessie and her steed Bullseye are the ones that must correct things. While on her mission Jessie discovers another girl, Blaze, who lives in the same house that Jessie shared with her first child owner. Blaze does play with toys, so Jessie’s new mission is to bring the two children together somehow. (We see that Jessie must work through her own abandonment issues as she has now been left by two children.) She is aided by Smarty Pants, a toy used for potty training. (It is so appropriate that Conan O’Brien is the voice of Smarty Pants. Be ready for an abundance of bathroom humor.) There is also a pair of old tech toys, a toy camera and a GPS toy that join in. Eventually, Jessie calls in the help of Woody and an army of Buzz Lightyears (Tim Allen) that all work together through more misadventures and action scenes. Naturally, everything will eventually work out all right for all involved. After five movies telling this story, it feels there is little originality left to present. It was technology that made the Toy Story style of animation possible. Now technology has become the villain. Can we just realize that this story has been beaten to death over these thirty plus years and that it is time to put these characters to bed?

The Favourite

The Favourite                    4 ½ stars

The Favourite is the latest film from director Yorgos Lanthismos who famously brought us The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. The film is an unusual costume drama to say the least that covers part of the reign of Queen Anne of England in the early Eighteenth century when England was at war with France in the War of Spanish Succession.  The English forces under the command of the Duke of Marlborough were victorious over the French.  The great cost of the war created a division in policy between the war hungry Whigs and Tories who pushed for a peace settlement.  None of the above matters much in the course of the movie as it is mainly concerned with the relationships between the Queen (Olivia Colman) and her close friend Lady Sarah Churchill (Rachel Wiesz) who is the wife of the Duke of Marlborough, and a new arrival at the palace, a lowly maid formerly from an aristocratic family, Abigail (Emma Stone).  This is no ordinary period costume film.  It is a roudy and uproarious comedy full of sharp wit and sexual innuendo.  The movie never leaves the setting of the palace and we only hear about the war through the reports that some English nobles provide.  In fact, all but the main three women in the cast fulfil fairly minor roles.  The movie is completely carried by Colman, as the ailing Queen who requires constant attention from the staff, Wiesz, who constantly manipulates the Queen to get what she wants and Stone, as she apples her womanly charms to gain favor in the Queen’s eyes.  Sarah and Abigail spend most of the film finding ways to better one another and become the Queen’s favourite friend and advisor.  I would say the movie portrays a completely irreverent depiction of English royalty which contributes to its success.  I believe the movie will be rewarded when awards time comes around and thoroughly recommend it.  Also, the movie reveals a little known fact, that there were plenty of lesbian love affairs going on in the English palace in this period, something I had not heard in any history courses.

Anna and the Apocalypse

Anna and the Apocalypse             3 ½ stars

Just in time for Christmas comes the Christmas musical comedy from England, Anna and the Apocalypse.  The movie starts out with us meeting Anna, a high school senior in England who is dealing with life choices following graduation and her father after the loss of her mother.  She also has her friends at school including John, Steph and Chris.  There is also her former boyfriend, Nick who is something of a jerk.  Since it is a musical some of the story is told by the main characters doing some excellently choreographed musical numbers.  And since it is Christmas time, there is the night of the school musical put on by many of the students.  All seems very conventional until about a half hour into the movie when the zombies come.  It seems a worldwide viral outbreak has occurred and most of the population has transformed into flesh eating zombies.  So it is now up to our small band of high school heroes to do hand to hand combat with the zombies and get Anna back with her father who is a janitor at the school.  All this is done to song and dance while they find inventive ways to kill off the zombies and keep from getting bitten.  Will they make it through the day and find Anna’s father?  The film is strictly for laughs and is fun to watch for its short hour and a half length.  Don’t compare this to such master zombie movies like Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later or The Girl with all the Gifts, but for a pleasant change and a break from holiday stress, it hits the spot.

Ferdinand

Ferdinand                           4 stars

One of the more engaging animated films of 2017 was Ferdinand brought to us by Blue Sky Studio and director Carlos Saldanha.  It is based on the children’s book about a sweet bull who is not interested in fighting but just wants to enjoy life and the people/animals around him.  His adventures take him to a peaceful farm in Spain, to a ranch where he “trains” to fight with the other bulls and finally to the fighting ring.  Through it all he keeps his peaceful nature as he deals with trying to keep his fellow bulls safe from the humans who seek to exploit them.  There is plenty to enjoy with the comical characters and the colorful animation.  Especially good are John Cena as Ferdinand and Kate McKinnon as the female “calming” goat, Lupe.  Though not on a level of Lion King or even Rio, this is a fun movie to watch and very suitable for children.