Comedy

Game Night

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  • Title: Game Night
  • IMDb: link

Game Night Blu-ray reviewJason Bateman and Rachel McAdams star in this forgettable comedy as competitive couple Max and Annie who host a weekly game night for their friends Kevin (Lamorne Morris) and Michelle (Kylie Bunbury), and Gary (Jesse Plemons) and his girl of the moment. When Max’s more successful brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler) hijacks game night with an elaborate murder mystery trouble ensues as “coincidentally” Brooks just happens to be kidnapped for real on the same night he hired actors to kidnap him as part of the game. And no one realizes it isn’t a game.

The script by Mark Perez (Accepted, Herbie Fully Loaded) offers some cheap laughs and chuckles, if you can swallow the absurd pretense. Lots of time is given to the relationships of the various couples, but it’s really only when all are involved and the crazy is turned up to 11 (such as throwing a priceless piece of art around a gangster’s mansion) that things get interesting.

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The Death of Stalin

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  • Title: The Death of Stalin
  • IMDb: link

The Death of Stalin DVD review

Very often, comedy comes from tragedy. The Death of Stalin is an unusual film. The political satire set during the days immediately before and after Joseph Stalin‘s (Adrian McLoughlin) death in Russia, the film follows the infighting and backstabbing among Stalin’s most loyal subordinates who maneuver to control Russia following the party leader’s death.

Rather than assemble a Russian cast, director Armando Iannucci brings together a group of primarily English and American actors (including Steve Buscemi, Jeffrey Tambor, Simon Russell Beale, Paddy Considine, and Michael Palin), allowing each to perform in his natural accent. The result only increases the absurdity of the proceedings which is counter-balanced by the darkness of Stalin’s policies.

While being one of my favorite forms of comedy, satire is hard which is the reason so few are made compared to the glut of physical and romantic comedies. Part satire, part political drama, and part farce, The Death of Stalin is an amazing and improbable piece of filmmaking that must be seen to be believed.

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Super Troopers 2

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Super Troopers 2
  • IMDb: link

Super Troopers 2 movie review2001’s Super Troopers may not have broken the box office, but the comedy featuring the Broken Lizard comedy group had definite charm and has earned itself solid cult status over the years. Not nearly as much fun as the original, with a plot more convoluted than necessary, there are still laughs to be had for a film that struggles fighting off sequelitis.

17 years in the making (including relying on crowd funding to help raise money for the film), Super Troopers 2 brings back all the familiar faces of the former Vermont Highway Patrol. Having lost their jobs as state police since the last movie in an often-referenced tragedy involving Fred Savage (which sadly doesn’t offer nearly the payoff one would expect), the group is given a second chance when the Canadian border is redrawn around a single town and the U.S. needs a trained police force to step in.

Most of the sequel centers around our heroes struggling to get along with Canadians who didn’t ask to be Americanized and getting into juvenile pranks with the local Mounties (Tyler Labine, Will Sasso, and Hayes MacArthur) who they are replacing.

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The Cutting Edge

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  • Title: The Cutting Edge
  • IMDb: link

“Those are figure skates, pal.”

The Cutting EdgeThis week’s Winter Olympics inspired Throwback Tuesday post takes us back to 1992’s sports comedy The Cutting Edge starring Moira Kelly as ice queen Kate Moseley and D.B. Sweeney as retired ice hockey player Doug Dorsey who becomes her unlikely figure skating partner in hopes of winning an Olympic Gold Medal.

After an injury at the previous Olympics prematurely ended his hockey before it began, and with the tempermental Kate unable to make it work with any potential partners, the pair get thrown together for an unlikely Olympic run. Terry O’Quinn and Roy Dotrice round out the cast as Kate’s father and her figure skating coach.

The script by Tony Gilroy (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Michael Clayton, The Bourne Ultimatum) doesn’t stray far outside on box featuring and odd couple pairing who come together both on and off the ice. That said, there’s certainly some charm seeing two characters, both rough around the edges in their own way, come together. And while the skating is far from Olympic quality, it works well-enough to sell the story.

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Three Amigos

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  • Title: Three Amigos
  • IMDb: link

Three Amigos DVD reviewToday’s Throwback Thursday post takes us back to the 1986 comedy which united Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short as a trio of silent B-movie stars mistaken for the western gunfighters they portray on film. In many ways the film proved to be a precursor to Galaxy Quest (or, as I like to call it, the best Star Trek movie ever made) which took the same premise of Hollywood stars and threw them into a world they had only pretended to live in. While Three Amigos is no Galaxy Quest, the zany comedy still holds up relatively well three decades later with the trio’s amusing antics, the accidental death of the Invisible Horseman, and a trio of original songs from Randy Newman.

Borrowing the basic set-up from Seven Samurai, a woman from a small Mexican village (Patrice Martinez) seeks the help of gunfighters to defend her home against the bandit El Guapo (Alfonso Arau) and his outlaws. Watching part of a film starring the western heroes, and believing them to be gunfighters, Carmen enlists the help of the Amigos who mistakenly believe they are being offered a role in a prestigious film with an in-famous co-star. Hilarity ensues.

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