Archive for the ‘Comedy/Laffs’ Category
Tuesday, June 11th, 2024
HIT MAN (2024) is on the more crowdpleasing side of Richard Linklater movies, a sort of comedy, sort of romance, sort of noir, sort of true story that’s good enough to sort of make me forgive the “based on a true story… sort of” disclaimer and related dad joke vibes. For me it doesn’t quite live up to the hype from the Toronto International Film Festival, where it apparently blew the roof off, but it’s definitely worth watching if you already get Netflix, where it ended up.
This is really a star vehicle for Glen Powell, an Austinite who worked with Linklater in FAST FOOD NATION, EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!! and APOLLO 10 1/2 (an animated/rotoscoped movie that’s also on Netflix, and quite good) before blowing up in TOP GUN: MAVERICK and ANYONE BUT YOU. Now the two of them teamed up to co-write and co-produce this showcase for Powell doing more than just his usual cocky hunky guy thing (but also that). He plays Gary Johnson, a New Orleans psychology professor who lives alone with two cats, enjoys bird watching, and tucks his polo shirts into his cargo shorts. He’s a dabbler who moonlights as a tech guy for the police, recording undercover stings busting people who were asking around about putting a hit out on somebody. When Jasper (Austin Amelio, The Walking Dead) is suspended for excessive force, Gary is pushed into playing the hitman, digs deep to create a macho character, and turns out to be very good at it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adria Arjona, Austin Amelio, based on a magazine article, Evan Holtzman, Glen Powell, Retta, Richard Linklater, Skip Hollandsworth
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Thriller | 25 Comments »
Wednesday, June 5th, 2024
June 3rd, 1994
I should’ve known better after BEVERLY HILLS COP III, but I was kind of excited to watch a ‘90s studio action comedy that I’m not really familiar with. I might have seen THE COWBOY WAY on video back in the day, but I don’t remember for sure, so it was basically new to me. Could’ve been an unheralded gem! But it wasn’t. Just some competently produced, very dumb bullshit. I always think of ’94 as a great year for film, but so far, I gotta tell you, the summer movies are not contributing to that impression.
The story is about two bickering New Mexico rodeo pals, Sonny (Kiefer Sutherland, TWIN PEAKS: FIREWALK WITH ME) and Pepper (Woody Harrelson, DOC HOLLYWOOD), who go to New York City to look for their missing friend Nacho Salazar (Joaquin Martinez, JOE KIDD). Nacho turns out to have been killed trying to save his daughter Teresa (Cara Buono) from traffickers, so they try to save her. Both the action premise and the comedy premise are that they only know how to live “the cowboy way” so they don’t really understand the city much but also can punch better than any mere city boy on account of cowboy ruggedness. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: David Newman, Dylan McDermott, Ernie Hudson, Gregg Champion, Joaquin Martinez, Kiefer Sutherland, Luis Guzman, Tomas Milian, William D. Wittliff, Woody Harrelson
Posted in Reviews, Action, Comedy/Laffs | 19 Comments »
Tuesday, June 4th, 2024
May 27, 1994
THE FLINTSTONES was undeniably one of the big movie events of the summer of ’94. Sure, it got poor reviews, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone who thought it was anything more than fine, but people definitely went to see it – it made almost $300 million over its budget, the #5 grossing movie of the year. Since we all agree that box office is important because movies are a business etc. etc., this figure proves that THE FLINTSTONES made a bigger mark than SCHINDLER’S LIST, PULP FICTION, THE CROW, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, SHORT CUTS, ED WOOD, and CLERKS that year. Only THE LION KING, FORREST GUMP, TRUE LIES and THE SANTA CLAUSE were more impactful. Sorry, that’s just science. There are fossils to prove it.
So I thought it was important to include in this series, and also I wanted my sainted wife, who had never seen it, to watch it with me. (Don’t worry, it was fine, she didn’t hate it.) But when I did that and then I re-read my review of the movie from the Summer Flings series in 2017, I realized that oh jesus, I covered this very thoroughly at that time. Didn’t leave much more to write about. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brian Levant, Elizabeth Perkins, Halle Berry, John Goodman, Kyle McLachlan, Rick Moranis, Rosie O'Donnell, Steven E. de Souza
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 32 Comments »
Monday, May 20th, 2024
“Better no cowgirls at all than cowgirls compromised.”
Richard Donner’s MAVERICK was obviously the big western type movie of May 20th, 1994. I didn’t see it. I did see the goofy indie cowgirl comedy that flopped and got terrible reviews. Gus Van Sant’s EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES, from the novel by Tom Robbins (who narrates the movie), was considered a huge debacle at the time. I remembered very little except that I kind of liked it. Thirty years later it wasn’t really what I remembered, but I found it actually pretty delightful.
It stars Uma Thurman very close to PULP FICTION, which came out in the Fall. It’s one of her early lead roles, and she actually gets the rare “IN” credit:
As you can see the title fills up the screen, so going by my TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. rule you know this is gonna be a good one. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Angie Dickinson, Buck Henry, Carol Kane, Crispin Glover, Ed Begley Jr., Edward James Olmos, Grace Zabriskie, Gus Van Sant, Heather Graham, John Hurt, k.d. lang, Keanu Reeves, Ken Kesey, Lin Shaye, Lorraine Bracco, Pat Morita, Rain Phoenix, Sean Young, Tom Robbins, Udo Kier, Uma Thurman, William S. Burroughs
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 15 Comments »
Friday, May 10th, 2024
I first heard of David Leitch as one of “the JOHN WICK GUYS” – the two MATRIX RELOADED stuntmen who directed JOHN WICK and changed action cinema. Chad Stahelski was the one credited, and has continued helming that visionary series, while Leitch launched a more normal directing career – half projects from their production company 87North (formerly 87Eleven), half for-hire type gigs. I love his neon-drenched spy movie ATOMIC BLONDE, and his other films (DEADPOOL 2, HOBBS & SHAW, BULLET TRAIN) all have good action, some style, and some other things I like about them, but their increasingly scattershot humor has kept me from fully embracing them. So I’m glad that with THE FALL GUY, a loose redo of the ‘80s TV show premise, he’s found his perfect subject.
The story is light and breezy, and everyone gets to be funny, but the humor leans mostly on one easygoing star persona – Ryan Gosling (director of LOST RIVER) as stuntman Colt Seavers – rather than having every character constantly compete for attention with wacky riffs. And best of all, obviously, it’s a love letter to the stunt profession, so there’s a very specific expertise and passion that makes Leitch more qualified than anyone else to tell this story. He even has a songwriting credit on an end credits “there should be an Oscar for stunts” song! (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: 87North, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, based on a TV show, Chris O'Hara, David Leitch, Drew Pearce, Emily Blunt, Hannah Waddingham, Jonathan Eusebio, Ryan Gosling, Stephanie Hsu, stunts, Stunts Unlimited, stuntsploitation, Sunny Sun, Winston Duke
Posted in Reviews, Action, Comedy/Laffs, Mystery, Romance | 50 Comments »
Monday, May 6th, 2024
April 29, 1994
PCU fits nicely into my theory of the summer of ’94 – that it was a time when boomers were looking back while gen-xers were moving in – by sort of melding those two things. The first sound you hear in it is Mike Bloomfield at the Monterey Pop Festival saying something about “this is our generation, man,” and then a song sampling Jimi Hendrix’s voice over modern dance music. It seems to be saying “Look, this is like the ‘60s, only it’s the ’90s!,” and in fact comes from an album called if ’60s were ‘90s.
This is the directorial debut of DIE HARD’s Harry Ellis himself, Hart Bochner, but it’s written by two fresh-out-of-college twentysomethings, Adam Leff & Zak Penn. It’s probly meant to speak to young people, but its attitude is that almost all young people are brain dead idiots… all but a few wild and crazy guys brave enough to scoff at everyone else’s beliefs because they don’t personally care about that kind of stuff so people who do must be faking it.
All fraternity comedies are pretty much based on ANIMAL HOUSE, right? A canonical boomer classic. PCU follows the standard campus comedy storyline: a rowdy fraternity hated by the authorities is going to get kicked out of their building if they don’t raise a bunch of money fast, so they throw a big party. And the modern spin on it is yeah, you have your old idea of fraternities, but it’s different now, it’s harder to get away with that stuff. But we do what we can, on account of we are outrageous party animals like you wouldn’t believe. ’90s style! I have a Hammerbox poster in my dorm room, to name only one example. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam Leff, Chris Young, David Spade, fraternities, George Clinton, Hart Bochner, Jeremy Piven, Jessica Walter, Jon Favreau, Kevin Thigpen, Megan Ward, Sarah Trigger, Zak Penn
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 73 Comments »
Wednesday, May 1st, 2024
BOY KILLS WORLD is a new action/dystopia/comedy goof that I could’ve guessed would annoy the shit out of many people even if I hadn’t already seen the evidence. You know, it’s got that splattery paint, sarcastic smiley face type of aesthetic. From the trailers I wondered if I might be one of those people, but I actually really liked this thing until almost the end. I found its brazenly show-offy oddballery pretty charming. It looks at you like yeah, I know this is alot of unnecessary gimmicks and trinkets, but I like that shit, what’re you gonna do about it?
Uh… nothing. Please – continue! I think Glaive Robber called it accurately in the REBEL MOON PART TWO: THE SCARGIVER comments when he wrote, “Old Vern would have PASSIONATELY hated it. But maybe not Contemporary Vern.”
It’s a frenetic, hyper-active, smart-alecky and casually violent movie, so every review besides this one compares it to a Ryan Reynolds comic book movie that’s not BLADE TRINITY or GREEN LANTERN. If you must compare it to modern super hero movies I’d say it’s more SUICIDE SQUAD, THE SUICIDE SQUAD and BIRDS OF PREY, but that didn’t even occur to me until now. I was thinking more along the lines of POLAR, SMOKIN’ ACES, ACCIDENT MAN, a little SHOOT ‘EM UP, a little KINGSMAN. Hell, maybe a little CRANK and CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE. I hated those but some people swear by ’em. Actually the comic book movies it made me think of are those ones we used to get in the ‘90s where you never heard of the comic before or again but they created a whole stylized alternate universe for it on a medium-sized budget. I always appreciated them for that, and this is better than many of them.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andrew Koji, Arend Remmers, Bill Skarsgard, Dawid Szatarski, dystopian futures, El Michels Affair, Famke Janssen, Francois Chau, H. Jon Benjamin, Isaiah Mustafa, Jane de Wet, Michelle Dockery, Moritz Mohr, Quinn Copeland, Sam Raimi, Sharlto Copley, Tyler Burton Smith, Yayan Ruhian
Posted in Reviews, Action, Comedy/Laffs | 10 Comments »
Tuesday, April 30th, 2024
April 22, 1994
When we first met director Matty Rich (in my summer of ’91 retrospective) he was the 19 year old who made STRAIGHT OUT OF BROOKLYN on $450K of credit card debt and donations, and won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature over fellow nominees Wendell B. Harris Jr., Todd Haynes, Michael Tolkin and Richard Linklater. By 1992 he was name-dropped in Ice Cube’s “Who Got the Camera”,” in which Cube has a run-in with cops and says “I’m looking for John, Matty or Spike Lee.”
And in 1994, when he was still only 22, he made his big sophomore followup THE INKWELL, an $8 million movie distributed by Buena Vista Pictures. That’s a bigger budget than SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT, SCHOOL DAZE or BOYZ N THE HOOD, but smaller than POETIC JUSTICE. John and Matty (considered gen-xers since they were born in 1968 and 1971) were the new younger guys coming in after the success of Spike Lee (who, like Robert Townsend and Mario Van Peebles, was born in 1957). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adrienne-Joi Johnson, Bicentennial, Duane Martin, Glynn Turman, Jada Pinkett Smith, Joe Morton, Larenz Tate, Mary Alice, Matty Rich, Morris Chestnut, Paris Qualles, Phyllis Yvonne Stickney, Suzzanne Douglass, Trey Ellis, Vanessa Bell Calloway
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Drama | 13 Comments »
Monday, April 29th, 2024
SERIAL MOM is a comedy I loved when it came out thirty years ago, in April of 1994. I think at the time I’d probly seen CRY-BABY, possibly POLYESTER, but I was fairly uninitiated into the films of John Waters. I just knew that at that moment he offered the perfect combination of what-we-need-right-now and what-no-one-else-is-making.
Kathleen Turner (V.I. WARSHAWSKI) stars as Beverly Sutphin, good old fashioned middle class mother, home maker, bird lover, cookie baker. She lives in a huge house with her dentist husband Eugene (Sam Waterston a few months before starting on Law & Order), college-age daughter Misty (Ricki Lake, filming right before she started her talk show) and high schooler son Chip (Matthew Lillard, who had only been in GHOULIES III: GHOULIES GO TO COLLEGE). They’re a family who get along well, and eat breakfast together every morning, sharing the newspaper. Beverly knows the garbage men by name and waves to them through the window. She hates flies and gum to a possibly unhealthy extent, but she seems like a nice lady. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: John Waters, Justin Whalin, Kathleen Turner, Matthew Lillard, Mink Stole, Patricia Hearst, Ricki Lake, Sam Waterston, Scott Morgan, Suzanne Somers, Walt MacPherson
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 45 Comments »
Wednesday, April 17th, 2024
And lo, the forces of boredom and time or what have you separated the Coen Brothers temporarily, and gave us a clearer view of what each brings to the team. First was Joel Coen’s THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH, a beautiful but straight forward black-and-white rendition of the Shakespeare jam. What struck me most about it other than the look was how naturally Denzel Washington could say the original dialogue and still sound exactly like the modern Denzel we know and love. I hope some day we get to hear him do that with some Coen dialogue.
Now we have Ethan Coen’s first solo directing joint*, an original piece written with his wife Tricia Cooke, who’s also editor (as she was on THE BIG LEBOWSKI, THE NAKED MAN, O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? and THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE). Titled HENRY JAMES’ DRIVE-AWAY DYKES on the credits, this is a goofy lesbian road comedy about a pair of mismatched friends doing a drive-away (getting paid to drive someone’s car one way) from Philadelphia to Tallahassee.
*he says he and Cooke both directed but they didn’t really care about the credits and he was already in the DGA (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ari Wegner, Beanie Feldstein, Bill Camp, C.J. Wilson, Colman Domingo, Ethan Coen, Geraldine Viswanathan, Henry James, Joey Slotnick, Margaret Qualley, Matt Damon, Miley Cyrus, Pedro Pascal, Tricia Cooke
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 15 Comments »
