Comedy

Who You Gonna Let Go to Voicemail?

  • Title: Ghostbusters
  • IMDb: link

GhostbustersWriter/director Paul Feig‘s lazy adaptation of the much-beloved 1984 comedy Ghostbusters isn’t the complete trainwreck I half-expected. The movie does have its share of laughs, and the CGI ghosts (with a couple of notable exceptions) are impressive. It’s too bad the script is not. While the film offers glimmers of what could have been, we are instead left only with regrets about what is.

Offering us an all-female team-up of three white scientists and one regular Joe who happens to be black, the 2016 lacks the chemistry of the original movie which it attempts to make up for with a variety of cheap body humor jokes and a series of running gags like how hopeless their man-servant (Chris Hemsworth) is. Desperately missing an unscrupulous Bill Murray character on the team to stir the pot, instead we get a stick-in-the-mud (Kristen Wiig), a loud-mouth (Melissa McCarthy), the crazy one (Kate McKinnon), and of course their new sassy black friend (Leslie Jones). I’m almost positive these characters are given names at some point, but they are so paper thin the movie offered me no reason to learn, let alone remember, them.

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1986 – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

  • Title: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
  • IMDb: link

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

On this day 30 years ago audiences were introduced to high school senior Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) in writer/director John Hughes‘ 1984 comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Roping both his girlfriend and reluctantant best friend into skipping a day of school with him, Ferris, Sloan (Mia Sara), and Cameron (Alan Ruck) would have a day they would never forget.

Constantly breaking the fourth wall by allowing Ferris to directly address the audience, the film is set in Chicago where Hughes was able to incorporate several well-known landmarks. Both a love story to the city and to the end of youth, Ferris Bueller is a smart, funny, and surprisingly thoughtful film for a high school comedy. Other aspects of the story involve the principal (Jeffrey Jones) obsessed with proving Ferris is skipping school, Ferris’ jealous older sister (Jennifer Grey) who hates the love and attention her brother receives, Ferris’ clueless parents (Cindy Pickett and Lyman Ward), and Cameron’s constant unease both with skipping school and the trio “borrowing” his father’s 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder for their jaunt around town.

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Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

  • Title: Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
  • IMDb: link

Popstar: Never Stop Never StoppingLet’s face it, if you are paying to see Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping you know going in exactly what you are getting. Written by The Lonely Island Trio Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone, the celebrity mockumentary is variations of one joke stretched to 86 minutes. Lampooning celebrity by highlighting former boy band singer Connor4Real (Samberg) turned solo star adjusting to the unexpected criticism of his new album, it takes shots at everything from vapid celebrities to the media obsessed with them.

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping isn’t a great movie. Like it’s lead character, it lacks the brains or ambition to make the most out of its talent. That said, even over-stuffed with real-life celebrities playing themselves and jibes at TMZ, the movie does produce several humorous moments. Not all the jokes land but enough do to to keep the train rolling. An 86-minute running time might seem rather short, but for a script with so little to say it’s actually a tad long.

The film’s creators bring their music parody skills to bear here. However all of Connor’s songs, both the hits and horrific misfires, all sound pretty much the same (bad and ridiculous). That’s a problem when the entire plot hinges on some being vastly better than others.

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The Nice Guys

  • Title: The Nice Guys
  • IMDb: link

The Nice GuysIn his latest film writer/director Shane Black returns to a formula he knows well. Set in the 1970s, The Nice Guys delivers on the buddy-cop genre by pairing hired thug Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) with drunk private detective Holland March (Ryan Gosling) on a case involving a missing girl (Margaret Qualley), a murdered porn star (Murielle Telio), political activism, and the United States Justice Department.

The Nice Guys is an attempt to recapture the brilliance of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang by similarly throwing together an unlikely pair to solve a case involving a missing woman. The Nice Guys lacks the snappy dialogue of Black’s best film and the pulp detective and noir elements add an entire layer to Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang which is missing here. Given their similarities, it’s impossible not to compare them, but even if his latest doesn’t quite measure it still delivers in its own ways.

Gosling and Crowe work well together, but it’s the addition of Angourie Rice (as March’s daughter Holly) that ultimately makes the pairing work. Even if the murder plot is a bit convoluted, it’s a joy to watch them slowly uncover the truth.

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The Big Bang Theory – The Viewing Party Combustion

  • Title: The Big Bang Theory – The Viewing Party Combustion
  • wiki: link

The Big Bang Theory - The Viewing Party Combustion

For an episode centering around the group gathering together to watch Game of Thrones “The Viewing Party Combustion” has little to do with the HBO series. The viewing party is basically just an excuse to gather the group together as small fights, beginning with Leonard‘s (Johnny Galecki) railing at Sheldon (Jim Parsons) for another stipulation in the roommate agreement, break them into two separate factions.

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