Archive for the ‘Comedy/Laffs’ Category
Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006
Merrick here…
Here’s the inimitable Vern with a look at TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY – a film I really, really enjoyed (the racing sequences were surprisingly well done, too!)
What does Vern think? Read on…
I don’t usually review these “comedy” type movies for you guys but I felt like maybe I should do this one just to show some of my talkback pals that I do know how to laugh and have a good time, etc. I think last time I reviewed a comedy for you guys it was the fucking WEDDING CRASHERS movie and I caught some hell in the talkbacks for saying that it was “something your friend’s girlfriend who you hate would claim is really good.” Of course, America is in a vulnerable state right now so she quickly fell in love with the movie and they are still happily married. So I was very wrong when I said nobody would remember it two weeks after it came out on video. Even I still remember the movie and how much you motherfuckers are crazy for thinking it’s good. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam McKay, Gary Cole, Sacha Baron Cohen, Will Ferrell
Posted in AICN, Comedy/Laffs, Reviews, Sport | 2 Comments »
Saturday, July 29th, 2006
I enjoy a good pervy Larry Clark movie, but I don’t know many people who do. But never fear. I am here to tell you that this is his most accessible because it’s a whole movie based around how likable the characters are instead of how despicable they are. You actually root for these guys. It’s incredible.
I’m not gonna lie to you. You still gotta get past the fact that Larry Clark is a creepy, dirty pervert. This movie opens with a video interview of one of its young stars that has the vibe of that infamous Calvin Klein kiddie porn commercial (in other words, this is a film by Larry Clark). The interview itself is great because the kid, Jonathan, is a non-actor talking about his life and some of the things he talks about we end up seeing re-enacted in the movie later. But you might be a little uncomfortable with the fact that he’s sitting on a bed with no shirt on talking to Larry Clark. Not the most savory individual to be hanging out in a kid’s bedroom. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Larry Clark
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Friday, July 21st, 2006
Every once in a while I’ll get in a gentlemanly argument with a motherfucker about whether Michael Bay single-handedly ruined the future of action cinema forever, or whether he’s just an asshole. And invariably a Bay-defender will claim that although his movies are not fun to watch and you don’t know what’s going on while you watch them, Michael Bay “blows things up real good.” I think the idea is supposed to be that Regular Folk like to watch a big fiery explosion with no brains involved and if you got a problem with that you must be some kind of snob.
Well I am not a snob and I think you guys know that. The problem is that in my opinion he DOES NOT blow things up good. He blows things up and then by the camera placement and quick cuts forces us to wonder whether we are in fact watching an explosion or a closeup of Billy Bob Thornton’s shoe or perhaps the reflection off a bead of sweat dripping down Josh Hartnett’s adam’s apple. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Al Leong, Carl Weathers, Craig R. Baxley, Vanity
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Reviews, Thriller | 19 Comments »
Tuesday, June 27th, 2006
As you know I’m not one for the cartoons but somehow I ended up seeing this new one called CARS. What CARS is about is cars. However they are not any ordinary type of car like you’ve ever seen before, they are living cars. And when I say that I am not even talking about a Knight Rider or Herbie the Love Bug type of scenario here, I am talking about an entire society devoid of human life, but dominated by living, feeling cars with weird eyeballs on their windshields. They can make gestures and they can use their tires sort of like hands, and they have jobs, etc. Even the insects of this world are cars, but there are regular non-car plants.
These cars have not only created a civilization, but their civilization has been around long enough that the good old days are gone. The story is about Lightning McQueen, who is apparently not named after Steve McQueen despite his brave service to the cause of cars in LE MANS and BULLITT. Thanks alot, assholes. Lightning is a hotshot race car, basically a NASCAR star without a driver. Because he’s a stubborn egotistical asswipe of a car he fucks up and blows his huge lead making the big race a three way tie. One of the other racers is played by Michael Keaton but he looks like the Burt Reynolds of cars. Anyway Lightning has to go to California for another race and because he’s a celebrity he doesn’t even bother to drive there himself, he goes inside his friend, a Mack truck played by Cliff from Cheers. Basically, he is inside his friend’s ass, but you can’t completely blame him because the inside of his friend’s ass looks like some kind of luxury apartment. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Pixar
Posted in Cartoons and Shit, Comedy/Laffs, Family, Reviews, Sport | 5 Comments »
Monday, June 19th, 2006
Hi, everyone. “Moriarty” here with some Rumblings From The Lab…
What a collision. Vern and Michel Gondry. Can’t wait to see how this goes:
Hey fellas,
I saw THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP which is the new Michel Gondry picture that comes out in September. It was the closing movie at the Seattle International Film Festival here. Michel Gondry was there to briefly introduce the movie, but didn’t do a question and answer session. Which is good because the first question probaly would’ve been, “what was that all about?”
Here’s the “where I’m coming from” paragraph, I’ll keep it brief. If you’re not into Michel Gondry then throw a grain of salt on this one, because I like every movie the guy has made. Yes, including HUMAN NATURE. I was the guy in the theater who was embarrassed because he couldn’t stop laughing and nobody else could start. To this day I think people didn’t give it a fair shake because they only had BEING JOHN MALKOVICH to compare it to. I honestly believe there will soon be a mass re-evaluation around the world where people decide they like HUMAN NATURE after all, now that they like Michel Gondry. If this does indeed happen then everybody has to buy me a Pepsi or something. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Michel Gondry
Posted in AICN, Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Fantasy/Swords, Reviews, Romance, SIFF | 1 Comment »
Monday, May 15th, 2006
A while back I wanted to get a copy of the book Cockfighter by Charles Willeford. The one the Monte Hellman movie is based on. I found it in a collection with two other Willeford books, so I read those first. I knew what Cockfighter was about obviously, but the other two I had no idea, so from page 1 on the books had me guessing where the hell they were going, and usually being wrong.
The Pickup starts out with this guy spending his days drinking in bars and finding jobs at diners, who seems to have real bad luck and get in fights everywhere he goes. And he meets this rich girl. Of course you assume she’s gonna be a femme fatale, she’s gonna lead him on and trick him into killing somebody or stealing her father’s money or some shit, but it never happens. Instead they fall in love for real but they have this fucked up Sid and Nancy love. They are tormented and depressed and they bring the book spiraling down into the abyss with them. Before you know it they decide to slit their wrists, and end up in an insane asylum, and it keeps going from there. Even the very last sentence of the book makes you say, “Whuh?” and have to go back and reconsider everything that happened before. I like that. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Terry Zwigoff
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews | 4 Comments »
Saturday, April 15th, 2006
Last week I reviewed this movie THE ICE HARVEST which I thought was only okay. And I think I blamed director Harold Ramis, who I accused of mediocrity. Then the other day, through coincidence or karma or something, I ended up watching GROUNDHOG DAY, which is the Bill Murray movie Ramis directed back in 1993.
I’d seen this movie before but I actually forgot how good it was, so I gotta give Mr. Ramis credit. I give credit where credit is due, and credit is due right here. Harold, here is your credit. Take it.
I’m sure you’ve seen this one before but if not here’s the deal. Bill Murray is a bitter, cynical weather man who has to go to Punxatawney to cover the Groundhog Day ceremony where they pull the groundhog out of a tree stump and pretend to ask him if he saw his shadow or not. Bill clearly hates this shit so he gets it over with and tries to get the hell out, but a blizzard (which he had predicted would not happen) strands him at a bed and breakfast. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Murray
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Reviews, Romance | 16 Comments »
Friday, March 31st, 2006
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with our main man Vern who has seen SLITHER and wants to tell you about it. Give him your ear… uh… I mean, give him your eye. Enjoy!
Boyos–
I guess horror movies are like anything else, they go in cycles. We’ve had this whole drought where it seemed like there was nothing but sissy PG-13 studio horror, and lots of horror fans whining. Now the harsher R-rated horror movies are starting to trickle back in, and a whole other set of people get their chance to whine. (It turns out that our society is just now going down the shitter because there’s a movie where mutant cannibals are mean to a baby. Even though it’s a remake of a 30 year old movie about mutant cannibals being mean to a baby.) Anyway, now with SLITHER we get back another old buddy we haven’t seen in so long we almost forgot about him: the funny horror movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Darren Shahlavi, Elizabeth Banks, Gregg Henry, James Gunn, Michael Rooker, Nathan Fillion
Posted in AICN, Comedy/Laffs, Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 3 Comments »
Monday, March 20th, 2006
FORMULA 51 aka THE 51st STATE
Here’s a movie I always meant to see just because it was directed by Ronny Yu (BRIDE OF CHUCKY), but I skipped it because I never heard a single good word about it. Until the day Paul wrote to disagree with my MUNICH review and then, possibly to avenge me for the review, recommended I watch this one.
Okay, so the movie’s not terrible, it has it’s moments of inspiration, but to me it was a big mess and a little on the cheesy side. When it was over I realized that a better score would’ve gone a long way toward making it more acceptable. Ronny Yu does the whole thing in a goofy, frinetic style and then the cheeseball dance music done by some guy named “Headrillaz” makes it seem like some out of touch commercial trying to be cool. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Emily Mortimer, Meat Loaf, Robert Carlyle, Ronny Yu, Samuel L. Jackson
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 15th, 2006
Here’s a weird fuckin movie written and directed by William Peter Blatty, the guy who wrote the novel of THE EXORCIST. I’ve been hearing the title for years so I know it has a cult following, but I think they had trouble selling it because all they could figure was “from the creator of THE EXORCIST” but it’s not like that movie at all. It starts out as a goofy comedy and turns into a sad essay about God, or something. I don’t really understand the meaning of the title, but it has something to do with a protein molecules and the existence of God. It’s mentioned in a dream scene where an astronaut finds a giant crucifix on the moon.
But now I’m making it sound stranger than it actually is. All I can figure to describe it is “ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST meets ROLLING THUNDER.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Joe Spinell, Moses Gunn, Neville Brand, Robert Loggia, Stacy Keach, Tom Atkins, William Peter Blatty
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 3 Comments »
