Category Archives: Comedy

Juliet, Naked

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Juliet, Naked                      4 ½ stars

For a pleasant change I took in a romantic comedy, Juliet, Naked which is recently released and stars Rose Byrne, Ethan Hawke and Chris O’Dowd.  This was not your typical silly derivative romantic comedy, but one that has a more real feel to it, one that has several laughs that can be described as low key, but still very amusing.  O’Dowd is Duncan who lives with his long time girlfriend Annie (Byrne) in a quiet British coastal town and is obsessed with Tucker Crowe, an American rock star who made a splash twenty five years earlier and hasn’t been heard from since.  Duncan even has a website dedicated to his favorite artist and one day receives a recording of an early unfinished version of a Crowe album called Juliet, Naked.  Duncan of course thinks this is a fantastic find, but girlfriend Annie is not so impressed so she writes an anonymous review dismissing the recording as nothing very special, much to the disgust of Duncan.  Well, eventually who should find the review but Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke) himself.  Crowe actually agrees with Annie and the two set out to have a regular ongoing correspondence of everything going on in their lives.  We find out that Crowe has made a mess of his life having several children by different women, all of whom he has declined to take responsibility for.  Of course you can see that these two internet friends will have to get together and explore how they can relate in person.  This is when things really start to happen and life gets much more complicated.  The movie works well with its genuine writing and some outstanding performances by all three main characters.  It is also aided by the contributions of two young actors as two of Crowe’s children.  Juliet, Naked is based on a novel by Nick Hornby and works well as a comedy that deals with some real relationship issues, but also delivers its share of comedic moments.  The movie is made even better when you consider it has original music actually sung by Ethan Hawke!

El Conde

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El Conde              4 ½ stars

Just in time for Halloween comes my discovery and viewing of the 2023 vampire movie El Conde, by Chilean director Pablo Larrain who must be my favorite Latin director after Guillermo del Toro. I have seen several of his successful movies including Spencer, Jackie and No. In El Conde Larrain combines two of my favorite genres of comedy horror and political satire creating a real fright fest. Filmed in black and white, the movie takes on fascist figures making them out to be viscous monsters. At the beginning of the movie, we meet a French soldier named Claude Pinoche serving France under Louis XVI and see him witness the beheading of Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution. Fearing for his life he runs away, but we learn that Pinoche is a vampire and thus blessed with a long life. For two centuries he travels to Haiti, Russia and Algeria vowing to fight against revolutions as a soldier, while serving under merciless dictators. He finds his way to Chile in 1935 where he rises to the rank of general and eventually overthrows the socialist government of Allende in 1973 and becomes the new dictator of Chile, killing hundreds during his brutal reign. Thus, Pinoche is actually Augusto Pinochet (Jaime Vadell), the fascist ruler of Chile, only he is a vampire. After being driven from power, having lived for 250 years he dies in 2006, except that his death was faked, allowing him to live on his country estate. (There he happens to have a giant guillotine that gets put to use.) He is joined by his corrupt wife, Lucia (Gloria Munchmeyer), his five children and his longtime butler, Fyodor (Alfredo Castro), a Russian Cossack devoted to his master. Pinochet now goes by the title, The Count. (Hence, the name of the movie), but he would like nothing better than to just die. During his reign, besides all the killing, Pinochet has robbed the country of a fortune and hidden it in various countries all over the world. His children would like him dead so that they can inherit the money, but the problem is The Count was bad at accounting and has lost track of it. So, the family hires a forensic accountant in the form of a young catholic nun named Carmen who is to track down the money by scouring through the records and interviewing the family members. She would also like to exorcise the demon out of Pinochet, something The Count isn’t so keen on. The Catholic Church having sent Carmen to do the job, is hoping they can get their hands on the fortune too. Now having a young beautiful nun around has reinvigorated The Count causing him to rethink his desire to die. The end result is him renewing his reign of terror on the country, flying by night to seek fresh blood. (His preferred method of consumption of blood is to place the human heart in a blender and make a blood smoothie. Points for originality on that one!) Larrain has taken on fascist dictators before in his works including The Club and No. In El Conde he really goes after Pinochet, satirizing this ruthless ruler portraying him and his family as greedy monsters. The movie is really a condemnation of fascists everywhere, sending us a warning of what they can do to a country. Pinochet even says that he wants to destroy the International Criminal Court. (I think I have heard that before.) There is one other character that I must mention, that being the narrator who speaks in the voice of an older British woman. She turns out to be Pinochet’s mother and is also a vampire and is someone of great importance in world politics, but you will have to watch the movie to find out her identity.

Victoria & Abdul

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Victoria & Abdul                               3 stars

Victoria & Abdul brings actress Judi Dench and director Stephen Frears together again for the telling of the story of Queen Victoria, who in her later years develops an attachment to a young Indian clerk named Abdul Karim.  Abdul has been summoned from India to participate in the Queen’s Golden Jubilee where he finds the old queen seeks to consult with him on a variety of matters and he becomes a teacher of sorts.  All of this is very troubling to the Queen’s staff and in particular, her son Bertie, the Prince of Wales.  They consider it demeaning that a man from a poor family of color could find his way to a position of honor among the royal family.  We are told that this is all based on a true story, but it is one that has gone largely untold. Presumably the family at the time had tried to keep it hidden.  The film is based on a book that was recently published.  Much of the film is done in a comic fashion as it finds comedy in how differently the cultures involved find one another.  Therefore, I have to wonder just how much of the story is true.  But putting all that aside, the film is still quite enjoyable and gives us two fine performances from Judy Dench and Ali Fazal.  Victoria & Abdul was nominated for two Academy Awards, Best Costume Design and Best Make up.  Stephen Frears is a very prolific director in Hollywood having directed such outstanding works as Florence Foster Jenkins, Philomena, The Queen, Mrs. Henderson Presents and Dirty Pretty Things.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2

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Guardians of the Galaxy 2             4 stars

It has been four years since we heard from those heroes from the Marvel universe that includes Peter Quill, Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Baby Groot.  Now they are back again in their heroic fashion to once again save the universe from its latest threat.  This time circumstances force them to ally with enemies Yondu and Nebula as they must find out the true nature of Peter’s family.  Now they must deal with Peter’s recently found true father, Ego who turns out to be a millions of years old celestial being who inhabits entire planets and has desires to control the entire galaxy.  The team must battle to put their internal differences aside while they do the usual, engage in a colorful, explosion filled conflict of mega proportions in long action filled sequences.  One of the best performances has to go to Michael Rooker as the enemy turned friend, Yondu, who upon being betrayed by his barbarian like gang, must join with the misfit Guardians.  The second installment of Guardians may have lost a bit of its sparkle, but still has plenty of heart with its soundtrack of seventies and eighties music that seems to inspire their leader, Peter.  I am sure we will soon be hearing about the next sequel, Guardians 3.

A Simple Favor

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A Simple Favor                  4 ½ stars

A Simple Favor starring Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively seems to be a movie that is many things.  It starts as a buddy comedy movie, turns into a mystery suspense and then into a thriller.  All this is done in a good entertaining way that keeps our interest throughout as the plot brings a few unexpected twists our way.  It brings together the two talented actresses Anna Kendrick (without her Pitch Perfect singing) and Blake Lively (my favorite shark fighter girl from The Shallows) as best friends until one of them suddenly disappears without explanation leaving the other to solve the mystery of what happened together with the missing woman’s husband (Henry Golding).  The comedic Kendrick and well-paced plot is further aided by the most interesting choice of French pop music as a background that I have heard in quite a while.  Just be sure you don’t step out and miss any of the surprises along the way.  It can be a challenge to keep up with at times.

Assassination Nation

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Assassination Nation      3 ½ stars

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this film, but I did expect a great deal of violence which Assassination Nation did deliver on.  This drama by Sam Levinson follows four high school teenage girls who engage in social media like all other teenagers and do things their parents would not approve of.  Then we find out there is a hacker who is releasing secrets of an assortment of local officials and ruining their careers stirring up anger of the local citizens.  This pattern continues until the town essentially loses its mind resulting in horrendous violence being leveled at our teenage subjects.  This film takes on many current issues like misogyny, hypocrisy and the loss of privacy doing so with a vicious approach.  I think it is showing us what it would be like if we took the anger expressed on social media and applied it to meeting people in person on the streets.  This is not a pleasant prospect.  I typically don’t go for extremely violent movies, but give them a chance if there is more to them than just the violence.  This one has a message that fits well with the anger being expressed in our society today.  It seems to be asking us to have some understanding for one another before we all kill each other.

Digger

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Digger   3 ½ stars

Have you been wondering what Tom Cruise has been up to since his last two installments of Mission: Impossible? It’s not another stunt-filled action movie like we have been used to. We found out this past weekend with the release of Digger, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman and Biutiful), a political satire about a southern billionaire oilman who may be responsible for the end of human civilization. Cruise has left his usual action star routine and transformed himself into a bombastic bigger than life tycoon who lives in a mansion and wears silk pajamas and snakeskin boots. It’s hard to recognize him under the makeup and the fat suit, but he makes himself known through the most over the top performance we have seen from him. The movie starts with bubbles emerging from the ocean floor. Then we find Digger Rockwell (Cruise) in bed attending to his sick cat, which appears to be an animatronic creation and not the real thing. (This is a hint as what will come later.) When he gets an emergency telephone call from an employee and is visited by some of his technical experts, it becomes apparent that there has been an explosion at the company’s oil rig in Greenland that resulted from a giant crack in the earth’s surface and a massive methane release. A large chunk of the ice shelf has broken free and may be headed to the coast of northern Europe where it would cause the greatest environmental disaster in history. A meeting of the President of the United States (John Goodman in a performance that matches his Big Lebowski role in intensity) and his cabinet is called at Digger’s mansion where the problem is presented and possible responses are considered. In discussions resembling our current state of affairs, possible options range from military strikes to calling for a spiritual revival to absolving those responsible of guilt and blaming the Russians. Later, in the master set piece of the movie, the leaders of the world are gathered in a large amphitheater like room where Digger makes an over-the-top speech with plenty of stomping and yelling taking blame for the catastrophe but also making himself out to be the hero as he was just satisfying the world’s unquenchable appetite for cheap energy. There is nothing subtle about Iñárritu’s intent here. Through all the satire and insane scenes, he is saying that we are our own enemy. Though we want to blame a few powerful men, we really must blame ourselves. Besides the loud performances, the story probably won’t land with many audiences used to Tom Cruise’s more conventional action movies. And it hasn’t been well received with critics either. It doesn’t quite match the humor of Don’t Look Up, that other comedy about an environmental disaster. This was a swing for the fences attempt for the moviemakers and for Cruise. The production though is top notch. It is apparent there was a lot of money behind this effort. Other notable cast members are Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal) as the scientist warning Digger about the disaster, Sandra Huller (Anatomy of a Fall), Digger’s sister, a scientist working on renewable energy, Michael Stuhlbarg (Call Me By Your Name) as the US Vice-President and Jesse Plemons as a big tech billionaire. I can’t say what to expect when awards season comes, but it looks like a big swing and a miss. If you see it, watch for the big plot twist!

Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom

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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

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

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.