Comedy

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

  • Title: Tucker & Dale vs. Evil
  • IMDB: link

“Oh, hi de ho officer. We’ve had a doozy of a day. There we were, minding our own business, just doing some chores around the house when kids starting killing themselves all over my property.”

tucker-and-dale-vs-evil-posterYou’ve seen this story before, but never quite like this. A group of college kids on a road trip run into a couple of unsavory types in the back woods and terror and mayhem ensue. So what makes Tucker & Dale vs. Evil so different? The script by Morgan Jurgenson and Eli Craig turns the overused premise sideways and provides one of the craziest movies of the year.

Tucker & Dale vs Evil casts the two scary looking hillbillies not as potential killers but victims in a world turned completely upside down. Dale (Tyler Labine) and Tucker (Alan Tudyk) are no killers. They’re just a pair of guys looking for some time away at their new summer home in the Appalachian Mountains.

When they save one of the girls from drowning her friends believe they pair have kidnapped Alison (Katrina Bowden) and plan to kill her. What follows is a level of insanity that’s hard to describe without giving away some of the film’s funniest moments.

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The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Fourth Season

  • Title: The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Fourth Season
  • tv.com: link

big-bang-theory-season-four-dvdThe Fourth Season of The Big Bang Theory finds more hijinks for the science nerds, the introduction of new characters like Raj’s sister Priya (Aarti Mann), an expanded role for Mayim Bialik as Sheldon’s girlfriend, and guest-appearances by Eliza Dushku, LeVar Burton, and Keith Carradine, as well as the return of Wil Wheaton, Barry Kripke (John Ross Bowie), and Laurie Metcalf as Sheldon’s mother.

This season’s episodes include Sheldon’s (Jim Parsons) pussycat phase, Howard (Simon Helberg) and Bernadette (Melissa Rauch) getting back together, Penny (Kaley Cuoco) and Amy become besties, Sheldon is baffled by Howard’s magic trick, an attempt to create an iPhone app, Leonard begins a relationship with Raj’s (Kunal Nayyar) sister, Sheldon attempts to throw a party with a new group of friends and takes part in a girls night out, the gang takes part in a New Year’s Eve costume contest, and Leonard meets Penny’s father.

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A Good Old Fashioned Orgy

  • Title: A Good Old Fashioned Orgy
  • IMDB: link

a-good-old-fashioned-orgy-posterSome movies get rushed through production and hit theaters mere weeks after the final frame of film is shot. Others, for a variety of reasons, go through multiple edits and end up sitting on the shelf for years. A Good Old Fashioned Orgy (which was filmed back in the Spring of 2008) is the later.

The story centers around Eric (Jason Sudeikis) and his friends (Tyler Labine, Michelle Borth, Lake Bell, Lindsay Sloane, Nick Kroll, Angela Sarafyan, Martin Starr) who have thrown legendary parties at his family’s summer home for years. When his father (Don Johnson) announces his plan to sell the house the group tries to figure out how best to through their final end of summer bash. Their solution? An orgy!

The film is a mix of old friends saying goodbye to a tradition and a group of unsure thirty-somethings trying to recapture a youthful sexual spirit with a night of debauchery. The relationships work well, and we actually feel like these people would stay friends over the years. As to whether they’d all sleep together…

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Fright Night

  • Title: Fright Night (2011)
  • IMDB: link

fright-night-posterWith one or two exceptions, I’m not usually one for vampire stories. Sure I have some fondness to cheesy flicks from my childhood such as Love at First Bite and Once Bitten, but for the most part vampire movies leave me cold. So when I find one I enjoy I’m pleasantly surprised.

An exception to my disinterest to the genre is Joss Whedon‘s TV-series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel. It’s probably not a coincidence that I enjoyed Buffy writer Marti Noxon‘s fresh take on 1985’s Fright Night. I’ll also freely admit it doesn’t hurt that the movie co-stars Doctor Who‘s David Tennant.

The remake streamlines the plot of the original film and kicks into high gear much earlier as high school student Charley Brewster (Anton Yelchin) discovers his new neighbor Jerry (Colin Farrell) is not only a vampire but responsible for the death of several of his classmates in the Las Vegas suburb including his missing friend Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). (A fact that is revealed to the audience, Charlie, and his friends, much earlier than in the original).

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30 Minutes or Less

  • Title: 30 Minutes or Less
  • IMDB: link

30-minutes-or-less-posterLoosely based on real story Jesse Eisenberg stars as slacker pizza deliver guy Nick who is kidnapped by two slackjawed buffoons (Danny McBride, Nick Swardson) who strap a bomb to Nick’s chest and give him 10 hours to rob a bank. Don’t you hate it when that happens?

Nick must quickly make up with his best friend (Aziz Ansari), who he recently had a falling out with, and come up with a plan to save his life. Despite having everything to loose, Chet (Ansari) agrees to help Nick rob a bank with a plan that makes the guys from Bottle Rocket look like the Ocean’s Eleven crew.

Somehow 30 Minutes or Less wins a prize for being overly simplistic and convoluted at the same time. I’m still not sure exactly how screenwriter Michael Diliberti managed to do this. It turns out McBride and Swardson don’t want the $100,000 for themselves but as a down payment for a hitman (Michael Peña), the boyfriend of a stripper (Bianca Kajlich) they have just met, to kill McBride’s character’s father (Fred Ward). Did you follow all that?

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