Category Archives: Comedy

Asteroid City

Asteroid City      4 stars

Viewers of Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City will immediately recognize the picturesque style and rapid storytelling techniques of the acclaimed director. This is apparently the eleventh film of Anderson’s going back to Bottle Rocket in the nineties. This one may be the most imaginative one yet. Here we get a story within a story as the film starts with a TV host in a 1950’s Actors’ Studio show telling us about the writing efforts of a famed playwright working on his play, Asteroid City. This part of the movie is in black and white, but when we travel to the play, set in a 1950’s southwestern town in the desert the screen switches to bright pastel colors so typical of Anderson’s movies. The town is the location of the annual Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention because it is the site of a crater created by an asteroid many centuries before. There, we see a large collection of interesting characters portrayed by many well-known Hollywood actors, including some regulars that Wes Anderson works with. They include Jason Schwartzman as a war photographer traveling with his Brainiac son, Scarlet Johansson as a Hollywood film star and Tom Hanks as a rich grandfather. Some of the actors have double roles portraying their Asteroid City characters and the actors in the play when they interact with the play’s director (Adrien Brody). There are too many notable characters for me to list here. You will have to see the movie to get the full experience. Eventually, there is a life changing event in the small town that brings the attention of the US military. We do get a fascinating story told with rapid fire dialogue and narration that’s familiar as was done in movies of the forties and fifties. You may experience some confusion about what’s going on as expressed by Schwartzman’s Jones Hall does when talking to the director, Schubert Green (Brody). His advice: “Don’t worry about it, just keep telling the story.” Wes Anderson’s movies aren’t always cohesive. They are more about being something to experience and Asteroid City is all about the experience.

Elemental

Elemental            3 ½ stars

The new Disney/Pixar animated movie Elemental takes on racism and the treatment of immigrants as well as the question of whether fire and water can coexist. In the much anticipated movie released in June, a couple from the foreign land of Firetown comes to Element City, a metropolis where the citizens are made up of the four elements: Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. They set up a shop in a rundown part of town and soon have a daughter named Ember, who grows up to be a young woman with a very fiery personality. It’s pretty clear that there are racist treatments toward the Fire citizens and that the Water inhabitants are the more privileged class in this modern land. Ember is destined to eventually run the shop, taking it over from Dad when he retires, but she has difficulty controlling a temper that can wreak havoc on the shop and the customers. When she causes a water leak in the basement, a Water city inspector named Wade appears who is overly sentimental and prone to crying spells. Wade threatens to report the shop over code violations, creating the necessary situation where Ember and Wade must work together to find the source of a water leak that endangers much of Element City. There is no bad guy here. It is just a case of decaying infrastructure, but it provides a way to show how the Fire citizens are treated and the excuse to get Ember and Wade together and find out if Fire and Water can exist together. There are some moments of great tension involving a sports arena and enthusiasm for a Wind athlete and one of his greatest fans, and then there are the inevitable meet the parents scenes. There are the usual comedic moments where we find a cute character. This time it is a young Earth kid named Clod who is destined to be a pest when he grows up. It is clear that the writers drew on some of their own experience as immigrants in developing the story, especially with the traditions from the old country and with the Fire people being excluded from certain events. The animation is first rate as expected with Pixar, but the story is a little thin in this one.

Coming 2 America

Coming 2 America            2 stars

It took thirty-three years for a sequel to be made of the Eddie Murphy/Arsenio Hall comedy Coming to America. The original movie was a hilarious fish out of water story about Prince Akeem, an African prince from the country of Zamunda who comes to Queens and meets Lisa (Shari Headley), his true love and brings her back home to share his life in the royal palace. This time around in Coming 2 America it is his illegitimate son, Lavelle (Jermaine Fowler) of Queens who must make the journey to Zamunda and assume his place in the royal family, something that seems like a dream come true at first. The hitch is that he has been promised as a mate to the daughter of the general (Wesley Snipes) from the neighboring country of Nexdoria in order to prevent the two countries from going to war. The main draw of the original movie is the many comedic moments involving Murphy and Hall which includes various other characters played by the pair thanks to the HEAVY use of makeup. This is especially true for the gang from the MY-T-SHARP barbershop in Queens. These old men appear again in the sequel but their roles don’t seem as significant, though they are very funny. There certainly are some very funny moments, but this movie just doesn’t measure up to the original which was the second most popular movie of 1988. I certainly do credit the appearance of Leslie Jones as Mary who is just as funny as I remember her from Saturday Night Live. There is also a great scene with Colin Jost appearing briefly as a racist hiring manager that I found quite hilarious. Somewhat distracting were the flashback scenes that made use of de-aging CGI to feature younger versions of the prince (Murphy) and his assistant, Semmi (Hall). I recommend that you see the original movie again and skip the sequel as it is a less funny imitation of the first film.

Haunted Mansion

Haunted Mansion            2 stars

A number of years back Disney came up with the idea of making a movie based on a Disney ride and voila, Pirates of the Caribbean appeared on movie screens and became an instant success. Then just a couple of years ago Jungle Cruise came to the theaters and delighted many movie goers. Now we have the latest Disney release based on a Disney ride but this time you would be better off going to the park than to the theater. Haunted Mansion features a young woman named Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her nine-year-old son, Travis, who have taken possession of an old mansion that is over two hundred years old only to discover that it is inhabited by ghosts. She goes looking for help and finds a priest named Father Kent (Owen Wilson), a quantum physicist (LaKeith Stanfield) who has lost his wife, a medium (Tiffany Haddish) and a past his prime college professor (Danny Devito). None of the team can turn down the job because they all discover that once they enter the house, a ghost travels with them wherever they go, so they have to take on the challenge of removing the ghosts from the mansion. After many missteps involving spooky portraits and endless hallways with trap openings they eventually discover there is one ghost present who was a terrible man named Crump, (Jared Leto) who is collecting hundreds of souls in the house, tormenting them for eternity. With the help of a spirit trapped in a crystal ball (Jamie Lee Curtis) and a quest to find an artifact belonging to the horrible Crump some of the group leave on a venture to complete the challenge and rid the world of Crump. It’s quite a gathering of funny talented people that should make it an entertaining movie. The trouble is that it feels like a collection of poor CGI effects that make constant reference to the Disney ride and other past Disney movies. There are the obvious portraits with moving pictures, the descending floor, the guy playing the organ and the dancing spirits. There are even chairs that pick up characters and try to eject them from the property. It all feels like the movie makers are trying to inject everything they can find to mimic the ride. I had grown tired of the silly action by the time it was over. What a waste of comedic talent. I did find Hadish to be funny in her role as the medium and enjoyed seeing Jamie Lee Curtis if only briefly. Nice try Disney. Maybe you should make the movie first and then make the ride based on the movie. Another ghost movie called Ghostbusters comes to mind that I would gladly see again for more laughs.

Shotgun Wedding

Shotgun Wedding            1 ½ stars

I didn’t so much as watch Shotgun Wedding as endure it. Jennifer Lopez as Darcy does her latest performance in a wedding dress in this campy action comedy as a bride going to her wedding at a DIY destination event in the Philippines. Her fiancé, Tom (Josh Duhamel) has booked the location for its cost savings. Nevermind the fact that the location has a reputation for pirate attacks. When the pirates arrive, taking hostages and demanding ransom from Darcy’s father (Cheech Marin), Darcy and Tom somehow were missed and now must devise a plan to thwart the pirates and rescue their families and guests. Obviously zaniness ensues and all sorts of unlikely events happen highlighting the ineptitude of the pirates. It does turn out there is more to the crimes than what first appears and Tom is quick to see through the charade. One person who contributes well to the comedy is Jennifer Coolidge who always delivers with classy deadpan coolness. While watching this one I couldn’t help but feel this was another version of The Lost City (which also featured a dress but on Sandra Bullock), but a much less funny one. I usually see anything that features Ms. Lopez. This one was a lot more miss than hit.

Bottoms

Bottoms               4 ½ stars

The newly released Bottoms brings the raunchy high-school sex comedy into the 2020’s. The movie’s writers, Emma Seligman (who also directs) and Rachel Sennott (starring as P.J.) have described it as this generation’s Heathers, (that teen comedy from 1988 starring Winona Ryder). In this fast paced and foul-mouthed story, BFF’s P.J. (Sennott) and Josey (Eyo Edebiri) are gay high school girls starting their senior year, who regard themselves as ugly and are very horny for girls on the cheerleader squad. It’s a tough time for them as all the attention is on the school football team, the Vikings who are about to face their chief rival in the upcoming game. The quarterback, Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine doing some over the top acting) is the boyfriend of cheerleader Isabella, who Josey is hot for. Clearly this forlorn pair need a plan. Under pressure P.J. comes up with the idea of forming a girls fight club hoping to attract some hot girls to join, with Josey in agreement. Their pretext is that girls are in need of self-defense training and it is a way to promote feminist empowerment. Unfortunately, the founders know nothing about fighting so simply punch each other in the face to start things off. (They also invent a story about being in juvie where they supposedly acquired these skills that they don’t really have.) Eventually, their love interests do actually join the club where the girls beat each other up even with their teacher sponsor present (former NFL player, Marshawn Lynch). How long can P.J. and Josie keep this up before their true motives are discovered? You will have to see the movie to find out but in the meantime you can enjoy some of the funniest writing I have seen this year. No topic is too sacred for Seligman and Sennott to poke fun at. While being rather raunchy the movie has a smart feel to it like Booksmart and has a high level of energy like Bring It On, (also a cheerleader movie). You might say it is similar to American Pie, but with queer female characters. Rachel Sennott and Eyo Edebiri previously have done web shorts together on Comedy Central. Sennott previously appeared in last year’s Bodies Bodies Bodies and Edebiri was in this year’s Theater Camp. (One of the cheerleaders in Bottoms is played by Kaia Gerber, daughter of Cindy Crawford, important for my generation.) I think we can count on seeing plenty more work featuring these talents as well as from director Emma Seligman.

Dumb Money

Dumb Money                    4 stars

The new based on real events movie Dumb Money by Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya) starts by introducing the players on screen showing us their estimated worth. That way it becomes clear who the good guys are and who the bad guys are in the stock trading world, or who are the billionaire hedge fund managers and the retail traders (who the billionaires refer to as Dumb Money). In the early days of 2021 while America wasn’t watching the news about Donald Trump’s second impeachment, they were following a story about a small publicly traded company called Gamestop that was being promoted by a single nerdy small investor named Keith Gill (Paul Dano of Little Miss Sunshine and There Will be Blood). He broadcast his message of belief in the stock on Youtube and Reddit under the name of Roaring Kitty, convincing thousands of small investors to buy it to show the big guys on Wall Street that the stock was undervalued, making the phrase “I like the stock” a rallying cry. The hedge fund managers are all betting against them, selling Gamestop short, allowing them to make a lot of money when and if the stock crashes in value. (I don’t really understand how this works but the movie helps to explain it.) The billionaires are portrayed by Seth Rogen, Vincent D’Onofrio and Nick Offerman who strut around in their luxury suites and tennis clubs. The little guys who buy into the stock and hold it with religious fervor are a nurse named Jenny (America Ferrera), a retail clerk (Anthony Ramos), and a couple of college students (Talie Ryder and Myha’la) who are all desperate for money. The movie provides some non-investing characters to ask questions about what is happening, allowing Gill to explain it in easy to understand terms. These include his wife, Caroline (Shailene Woodley) and his idiot brother Kevin (Pete Davidson in another well executed smart-ass role). All this eventually leads to the climax of a congressional inquiry when there is an apparent impropriety that protects the billionaires from further losses. The movie effectively tells the story of what happens when Wall Street greed collides with the power of social media combined with the isolation brought on by the pandemic. Dumb Money is not The Big Short by any means but dramatizes a story about stock trading done in a way that makes it relatable to the average viewer. Also, fans of hip-hop artist Cardi B should be pleased by the choice of music.

Free Guy

Free Guy              4 stars

In the 2021 action comedy Free Guy, directed by Shawn Levy (the Night at the Museum movies) we first meet Guy (Ryan Reynolds), a very chipper guy who greets his goldfish, puts on his blue dress shirt and goes to his job at a bank where he cheerfully greets everyone. He and his best friend, Buddy the security guard (Lil Rel Howery of Get Out) seem unsurprised when the bank is robbed by masked villains with very large guns and calmly drop to the floor and have a casual conversation. As he walks through the streets of Free City he is surrounded by the mayhem of crashing cars, people shooting at one another, and falling debris from damaged skyscrapers. Yet none of this disturbs him, not even when he wakes up again in his room and repeats the day, just like the previous one. We soon see that all of the characters in Free City are part of a video game played around the world and Guy is simply a NPC (non-player character) in this game where the players operate their characters from home. Then one day he spots an attractive woman on the street that he thinks must be the girl of his dreams. She is known only as Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer of Killing Eve) in Guy’s world, but is also named Millie as the woman who is operating the avatar from her computer. In the real world Millie and her friend Keys (Joe Keery) are the coders who created the popular game that is owned by a giant corporation run by an authoritative tech lord called Antwan (Taika Waititi). When Guy follows Molotov Girl he discovers the truth about his existence in the game. Millie puts a pair of sunglasses on Guy that shows him the mayhem that the players of the online game see. This leads him to the decision to play his own game gaining experience and fame, making him a celebrity among the players in the real world. The movie combines elements from The Truman Show, Wreck It Ralph and Groundhog Day but with a great deal of comic action and impressive special effects aided by some amusing cameos from action movie-stars (such as Channing Tatum, Hugh Jackman and Dwayne Johnson). As the action progressed the idea came to me that this was like a type of West World where nobody gets hurt and with music that lightens the mood. (There is a great use of the theme song from The Greatest American Hero.) This is a fun movie that is silly and sweet and quite a departure for Ryan Reynolds who is best known for his superhero roles in action movies.

Flora and Son

Flora and Son                     4 ½ stars

I returned again this week to a film that appeared at Sundance but missed at the festival. Flora and Son is the latest creation of writer/director John Carney, who previously brought us Begin Again, Sing Street and his masterwork, Once. Again, the Irish filmmaker has created a simple story about conflict in a relationship that centers around and is resolved by the process of song writing. This time the story is about a young, Irish, working class, single mother, Flora (Eve Hewson (daughter of Bono)) who is struggling to raise her 14-year-old son, Max (Orén Kinlan) in a small Dublin apartment. Max, unfortunately has a habit of stealing and getting into trouble at school and is facing the prospect of being sentenced to a juvenile facility. In an effort to keep him out of trouble, she recovers a discarded guitar, has it restored and gives it to the troubled teen, hoping to get him interested in music. Max wants no part of this plan, but Flora is drawn to the guitar and goes in search of online guitar lessons, and in so doing finds Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a musician in Los Angeles who hires himself out for personal lessons online. The pair discuss the chords on a guitar and what it means to write a good song and before long Flora is critiquing Jeff’s songs and suggesting ways to make them better. The discussions get quite personal as they discuss the feelings created by a song and refer to song terms like the verses, the chorus and the bridge, something you only see in a John Carney movie. Occasionally, Jeff is shown in the same room with Flora to show how they are connecting over their discussions. (The viewer must ignore the fact that performing music together via Zoom is not practical due to the time delay.) Carney is always interested in his characters getting closer together, but also in the process of writing good music which I love to see. And ultimately there is hope for her son, Max as he reveals some musical talent as he learns to use a synthesizer to create rap music, and mother and son find that they do have a common bond in music. The movie has the right amount of humor and successfully dealing with family conflict without getting too sappy though it is probably not Carney’s best movie. Flora and Son is newly released in theaters so I suggest you see it there while you can. It is also available on Apple TV+.

Dicks: The Musical

Dicks: The Musical                           3 stars

The title of this movie leads you to believe that it is about dicks. This screen adaptation of a musical play first performed in a basement in New York does deliver. It has two of them. The screenwriters, Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson play Craig and Trevor, two self-obsessed straight men who are in love with themselves and don’t care who they screw over to get what they want. But then one day they meet each other for the first time, discovering that they are competing to be the best salesman for the same company, Vroomba, selling parts for this mysterious machine. They each have one half of a locket they each got from their parents, making them separated identical twin brothers. Of course they look nothing alike which only adds to the bizarre nature of the comedy. They set about to reunite their two separated parents, Harris (Nathan Lane) and Evelyn (Megan Mullaly) by donning wigs and switching places and persuading the two to arrive at a restaurant for a prearranged meeting. (Has anyone heard of The Parent Trap before?) Evelyn is now a wheelchair bound recluse in an apartment filled with odd knickknacks and horrendous looking wallpaper, and who keeps her vagina in a purse. Huh? Harris has come out as gay and has a secret as he keeps two bizarre looking creatures that he rescued from the sewer, referring to them as the Sewer Boys. Besides the bizarre nature of the premise the movie is going for shock and screams, containing almost nonstop references to sex acts (both straight and gay) and genitalia and plenty of use of the f word. It’s all done to music that is more memorable for the content than for the tunes themselves. There is no doubt that it succeeds in being outlandish, offensive and gross. It tries to reach a status of a cult movie, but I doubt it will be another Rocky Horror Picture Show. There are two other roles that are quite notable. Megan Thee Stallion is excellent as Craig and Trevor’s boss in a boiler plate office where she emasculates all the male employees in “Savage” style. And Bowen Yang of SNL does an admirable job as God who narrates much of the story as only Yang can. Dicks: The Musical is not the funniest movie of the year, but it is easily the most irreverent. It is fun just to see how offensive it can get.