Comedy

Death has Never Been so Funny

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Death at a Funeral
  • IMDb: link

death-at-a-funeral-poster

lnto everyone’s life, and death, it seems a little chaos must fall.  Death at a Funeral brings out all kinds of zaniness as friends and family gather to bury one of their own and end up nearly killing each other as things get further and further out of control.  Director Frank Oz gives us one of the year’s best films and the best comedy of 2007 so far.

A death in the family brings together a group of mourners each struggling with their own lives and creates the catalyst for the hilarious and the absurd as nothing goes as planned.

The dutiful son Daniel (Matthew Macfadyen) tries to comfort his mother (Jane Asher), who is driving his wife Jane (Keeley Hawes) crazy with her constant snips, and prepare to give the eulogy everyone expects his brother Robert (Rupert Graves), the famous author from New York, to give.

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The Simpsons on the Big Screen

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Simpsons Movie
  • IMDb: link

“Why would you pay to see something you can see for free on TV?”
—Homer Simpson

The Simpsons Movie movie review

If you’ve watched thw show you know the basic formula of it’s 18 years of success: Homer (Dan Castellaneta) screws-up, Bart (Nancy Cartwright) gets into trouble, Lisa (Yeardly Smith) fights for a lost cause, Marge (Julie Kavner) gets angry, and by the end of the episode everything turns out fine.  Not surprisingly the script for this movie version holds true to form.

The main story involves the obsessions of Homer with a new pig and Lisa with cleaning up Lake Springfield.  When these two storylines converge Springfield is put in danger (guess who’s to blame) and the family finds itself hated by their friends and hunted by President Arnold Schwarzenegger and the EPA.

The film is enjoyable and fans will not doubt flock to the theaters to have a chance to see their favorite characters on the big screen.  However one does have to ask why this film was made, and why was it made now while the show is still in production?  In one of the better jokes (though it rips-off Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back read the review) Homer asks the very same question.

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I Know Where I’ve Been

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Hairspray
  • IMDb: link

“I wish every day was Negro Day.”

hairspray-poster

Hairspray is a toe-tappin’ good time with a strong cast, good music, and plenty of fun.  It would be easy to dismiss it as simply a feel good story and the discovery of first-time actress Nikki Blonksy (who was found, in all places, at a Coldstone Creamery).  But beneath the film’s smiles, laughs, dances, and shakes, there’s a story about acceptance and struggle, about a willingness to sacrifice for doing what you believe is right, no matter what it may cost you.

Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky) is your average teen who daydreams in school about being a celebrity.  Tracy and her best friend Penny (Amanda Bynes) race home every day to catch the Corny Collins Show on television.  Hosted by Corny Colins (James Marsden) the dance show is the hippest thing in all of Baltimore.

From here the story breaks into two parts, that are surprisingly wll meshed together.  The first involves Tracy earning a spot on the show despite her size and the concerns of her mother Edna (John Travolta), her crush on Link Larkin (Zac Efron) and her hopes to win Miss Hairspray against the beautiful but malelovent Amber Van Tussle (Brittany Snow).

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You Kill Me

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: You Kill Me
  • IMDb: link

“My drinking is interfering with my work.  That’s why I’m here, so I can get sober and go back to killing people full time.”
 

you-kill-me-poster

After botching an important assignment Frank Falenczyk (Ben Kingsley) is shipped out of Buffalo to sunny San Francisco to get control of his drinking problem which is interfering with his work – killing people for the Polish mob.

After arriving in San Fransisco Frank is put up in an apartment and given a job in a funeral home by a friend of his bosses back home (Bill Pullman).  He begins to attend AA meetings, finds a friend and a sponsor (Luke Wilson) and meets and falls for a lonely woman (Tea Leoni).  For the first time Frank takes an honest look at his life and realizes he needs to get better so he can return to Buffalo and get back to the work he is so good at – killing people.

Much like The Matador (read that review) the film balances the issues of killing and death with a certain amount of whimsy and some fairly dark humor.  The AA scenes are some of the best in the film, especially when Frank decides to come clean with everyone about what it is he does.

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Psych – The Complete First Season

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Psych – The Complete First Season
  • tv.com: link

psych-season-one-dvd

What do you say about a show where the main character pretends to be psychic just in order to use his highly observant skill set to solve crimes, all while acting like a complete jackass? If you’re me, you call it fun.

After falling into the role of a psychic detective, lifetime quitter Shawn Spencer (James Roday) and his much more buttoned-down best pal Gus (Dulé Hill) start their own psychic detective agency solving crimes. Those included in this First Season collection involve murder at a Civil War reenactment, a missing wedding ring, a trip to Comic-Con,  a retired police captain (Kurtwood Smith) with an unsolved murder, underground poker, the National Spelling Bee, a psychic cat (who Gus is jealous of, whether he’ll admit to it or not), and an urban legend (which Shawn and Gus inadvertently started as kids). One of my favorites involves Shawn, Gus and Juliet (Maggie Lawson) helping Lassiter (Timothy Omundson) solve a murder at the planetarium.

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