I was pleasantly surprised by the first Magic Mike, a movie that was both funnier than I thought it would be and much more about the Great Recession than I thought it would be. But this is an entirely different movie.
Tag: Comedy
Bullet Train (2022, David Leitch)
This is a spin on the classic train movie that leans heavily into some specific styles in reimagining the genre. (Is the train movie a genre or is s it a sub-genre?)
The LEGO Batman Movie (2017, Chris McKay)
This is a very silly kids Batman film that has enough jokes for adults to keep you laughing but is pretty damn cheesy.
See How They Run (2022, Tom George)
This is a reasonably diverting and amusing mystery comedy that riffs on The Mousetrap, the infamous Agatha Christie play that has run in London’s West End, nearly continuously, for almost 70 years. (I have never seen it. It’s run was only interrupted by covid.) I wouldn’t say you have to seen The Mousetrap or read …
Pyaasa (1957, Guru Dutt)
This film is considered one of the greatest Indian movies of all time and a foundational film in Bollywood history. You can bet I didn’t enjoy it. SPOILERS I guess
Jennifer’s Body (2009, Karyn Kusama)
This is a fun horror comedy that plays around with the teen sex danger angle. Sure, it’s not the first to do this, but it feels like a pretty fresh spin on it.
The Great Dictator (1940, Charles Chaplin)
As the only American film (before their entry into World War II) to deal with the Nazis, I think we have to give it, and Chaplin, a lot of credit. It might seem crazy now, but some people didn’t think this movie should be made, or at least should be toned down. And this is …
The Bob’s Burgers Movie (2022, Loren Bouchard, Bernard Derriman)
Like every 22-minute TV show turned into a movie, this one struggles with enough laughs for its runtime. But it’s still pretty enjoyable and has most of the stuff you’d want in a Bob’s Burgers episode.
Space Truckers (1996, Stuart Gordon)
This is not one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen but it is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen with a cast this notable, which, for me, makes it feel worse.
Triangle of Sadness (2022, Ruben Östlund)
This is a satire cum gross-out comedy about the world’s 1%, broken up into 3 parts with a prologue. It won the Palme d’Or so there was more than a little hype going into it. What I can say is that it is very funny and it is breezy 147 minutes. So that’s something.
The Kids in the Hall: One Dumb Guy (2018) by Paul Myers
Full disclosure: The Kids in the Hall are among the most formative cultural influences of my life. I was too young when their show premiered, as I was 7 when the pilot aired and 8 when it premiered. However, I was old enough to watch it before it went off the air. (My guess is …
Norm Macdonald: Hitler’s Dog, Gossip and Trickery (2017, Liz Plonka)
This is a pretty amusing but otherwise very standard standup special from someone who has long been one of my favourite standup comedians. (If I can be said to have favourites because I’m definitely a sketch comedy person.)
Strong Bad Sings and Other Type Hits (2003)
I was deep in my Homestar Runner obsession when this came out and yet I don’t think I ever managed to listen to it. It’s been forever, and I pay way less attention now, but I still have a strong nostalgia for when I first discovered it, and a nostalgia for everything about it.
Slow Horses (2022)
I’m always a little unsure of whether to review a series at the end of the first season if I know for sure there is more coming. But with shows where the second season hasn’t even premiered yet, I feel much more inclined if only because I’m not sure if I’ll get there. And given …
The Lost City (2022, Aaron Nee, Adam Nee)
This is a pretty funny riff on Romancing the Stone style adventure films. Really, it’s a direct parody of Romancing the Stone and its sequel, in many ways.
Synecdoche, New York (2008, Charlie Kaufman)
I’ve finally gotten around to watching the film that temporarily killed Charlie Kaufman’s career as a director. If you don’t know Charlie kaufman was one of the most acclaimed American screenwriters of his era, and then he made this film. Though it is now regarded by some of one of the best movies of that …
Blithe Spirit (2020, Edward Hall)
This is a remake of a David Lean movie I’ve never seen that feels like it was remade because of the potential to make it vaguely “feminist.” It’s sporadically funny but suffers from a possibly bad casting decision and the usual incoherence that comes with ghosts.
A Simple Favor (2018, Paul Feig)
This is a noirish murdery mystery/thriller with a heavy dose of comedy that feels relatively unique for these types of films. I was mostly with it until the very end and I do wonder how much of the fault for the ridiculous climax is on the novel versus on the screenplay. SPOILERS
The Dead Don’t Die (2019,Jim Jarmusch)
This is a deliberately-paced, usually mildly amusing but occasionally laugh-out-loud funny zombie movie tribute film. To call it something other than a tribute film feels weird to me, because it feels like Jarmusch is more concerned with layering references – and possibly making some vague statement about consumption and climate change – than he is …
Red Notice (2021, Rawson Marshall Thurber)
This is a fairly entertaining movie that would be actually pretty fun if it wasn’t so stupid. It’s a frustrating experience to watch a movie where a bunch of the jokes land really well but the script is bad and the plot is ridiculous. The filmmakers don’t appear to trust their audience and the film …
Mac and Me (1988, Stewart Raffill)
This movie is infamous for being a transparent E.T. rip off that, for some reason, came out six years after its inspiration. But it’s a lot more than that. Because, I’d like to think that, even if this wasn’t so clearly a rip-off of one of the most famous movies of the 1980s, we’d still …
Zombieland (2009, Ruben Fleischer)
This is an amusing zombie comedy which sort of makes you wonder why it took until 2009 to make this movie. (In retrospect it feels kind of obvious.) There are certain things I didn’t love about it, but it was mostly pretty effective.
Parks and Recreation (2009)
This is a good-hearted but often hysterical situation comedy that it took me entirely too long to watch. I’m not sure exactly why but I guess I was at least slightly aware that it was a little bit wholesome and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t into wholesome in, like, 2011. Anyway…
Free Guy (2021, Shawn Levy)
This is an intermittently amusing and clever film about an NPC that becomes sentient. I have to say, I had no idea what it was about from the title, though the trailer clarified that for me. On the whole, given the cast and the conceit, it’s a film that should work more often than it …
Bo Burnham: Inside (2021, Bo Burnham)
Yeah, it took me a little long to get to this, given how buzzed it was, and given that we have Netflix. But let me say that the hype is mostly right: this has got to be one of the best pieces of art about the pandemic – at least as it applied to people …
Magic Mike (2012, Steven Soderbergh)
This is an entertaining and engaging comedy drama about male strippers during the financial crisis. It’s sort of an oblique comment on the consequences of the financial crisis and it’s fascinating that Channing Tatum wanting to star in a movie about his life as a stripper before he got famous turned into this film.
RED (2010, Robert Schwentke)
This is an amusing action comedy about former spies coming out of retirement with shades of Grosse Pointe Blank and The Whole Nine Yards. It has an incredible cast and they are clearly having a lot of fun. But it also feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.
Spaced (1999)
So I must say I knew nothing about this. I actually thought it was a science fiction comedy. So, I really knew nothing about it.
Working Girl (1988, Mike Nichols)
This is a pretty funny romantic comedy with ridiculous hair (and some insane eye shadow) and more craft than I would have ever guessed when I was younger.
Booksmart (2019, Olivia Wilde)
The “high school graduation party” movie has been done more than a few times. So has the “trying to find the big high school party” movie. And they’ve been combined, as they are in this film. But this movie has a new twist to the format: it’s girls, instead of guys, and they’re smart, and …