Tag: Comedy

That Guy… Who Was in That Thing

Željko Ivanek.
Xander Berkeley.
Craig Fairbrass.
Bruce Davison.

These are all names that you may have seen before, but probably don’t recognize in big amounts. If you clicked their links and saw their pictures, you might recognize their face, but find that you can’t quite picture what you have seen them in before.

Timothy Omundson.
Mark Rolston.
Wade Williams.
J. C. MacKenzie.

Are you getting it now? These guys are those guys. Those character actor guys. The ones that make you go, oh yeah, That Guy…Who Was In That Thing.

These are the working actors, who don’t make million dollar blockbusters, and then can live at home with their family or months off not a worry in the world. These are the actors who aren’t doing it for the money, because their pay certainly isn’t a lot (unless they are a long running TV show maybe). These are the ones who love to act, who will do most any role, and sometimes even have to live paycheck to paycheck. These are the guys not going to be winning awards down the red carpet anytime soon. Nope. They can probably only get Emmys. Well that is not true, one of these guys was nominated for a Tony, but I forgot who.

Oh Those Guys
It was one of these sixteen guys. Yeah. One of them.

Robert Joy.
Stanley Kamel.
Rick Worthy.
Paul Guilfoyle.

This documentary interviews all of these sixteen individuals and splices them together to tell a sort of story. We learn why they wanted to be an actor, what they were before acting, how their parents took the news, what their first big break was, what their favorite memories were, their regrets, the process into getting onto a new television show, what they have been doing lately, their interactions with fans when they have that “Oh shit, you are famous” moment, and their thoughts on fellow actors.

And that is about it.

Gregory Itzin.
W. Morgan Sheppard.
Zach Grenier.
Matt Malloy.

Honestly, early on, I was excited about this film. What a fun concept!

Then I got bored. Like, a third of the way in, I was already done. It seems like a good idea, to let us get to know these guys, and some of the stories were interesting. But I stopped caring pretty quickly. I don’t know if it is just the straight them talking format, and nothing else (because that is true), or what. But man. It turned into a snoozefest. I think it is only 80 minutes long, but it felt really really long.

Maybe the problem is that I just only knew like, half of these guys from things, and the rest felt like scrubs? Let’s go with that.

Either way. This documentary could have been a lot better.

1 out of 4.

The To-Do List

In the end, The To-Do List will just be known for Aubrey Plaza‘s first lead role in a film, and nothing more.

Huh, that sentence would have made more sense at the end of the review, but I think it is too late now. Now the bias is set. Now you know where I am going with it. Oh well.

Suck?
But I guess you already knew the movie might suck.

Brandy Klark (Aubrey Plaza) is your typical Boise, Idaho native. Her parents are pretty strict (Clark Gregg, Connie Britton), because her dad is a judge, so she was raised correctly. It is 1993, no internet to corrupt her, so she became Valedictorian of her graduating class. But she never really learned anything about sex or the human body. Only what she was told by her “slutty” friends (Alia Shawkat, Sarah Steele).

But after being forced into a college party, she sees someone. Rusty Waters (Scott Porter), an older guy, playing guitar. Oh em gee, so dreamy!

In fact, he almost has sex with her on accident. Oh snap! But he still doesn’t. She thinks it is because she isn’t an expert at sex, despite being an expert at everything else she does. So she makes a list of things to do over the summer, to elevate herself to sexual maturity, so that one day she can have sex with Rusty Waters. No matter who gets in the way.

Like her friend Cameron (Johnny Simmons) who clearly likes her. Also in the movie is Bill Hader as the pool owner, Rachel Bilson as the older more experienced sister, Donald Glover as a token black guy, and Andy Samberg as some local band guy.

Play? Kid?
See, there he is. At a House Party. Looking like Kid.

Really, just really, I got the feeling that no one really tried in this movie. Let me take a step back.

Aubrey Plaza does not act the same way she does in Parks and Rec, and other live interviews. That is presumably how she is. No, this character isn’t brooding, or sarcastic. It is just a overachieving girl, who wants a boy. So there is definitely acting in this movie.

It was definitely going for comedy, because it had a few amusing moments and a lot of shenanigans ended up happening. But nothing really struck a chord with me. IMDB tells me everyone is over 25 playing teens as part of the joke, but it isn’t a good joke. Why? Because that happens all the time. If they wanted to make that real joke, they should have gone even older. Make it super awkward.

Some situations were “Sex-awkward” which I guess is the main selling point. Virgins doing stuff! A nice girl being “slutty!” Oh the humanity. I will admit they were the most amusing part of the film, but even they fell short to me. But hey, Clark Gregg is in this movie. As a Conservative Judge! That sure is nifty.

In the end, The To-Do List will just be known for Aubrey Plaza’s first lead role in a film, and nothing more.

1 out of 4.

Delivery Man

I have failed the movie going public tonight.

Tonight I have seen Delivery Man, but I did not watch Starbuck, the foreign movie that this one is based on. It isn’t super foreign, because it is set in Canada, but it is the French part of Canada. Plus, the director and writer of Starbuck made this version too! Really, it is just some strange re-imaging with a star in the US that people might want to go see.

Vaughn
Well, they might have wanted to see five years ago.
David (Vince Vaughn) is a piece of shit. It sounds harsh, but he really is. The movie makes sure you know that early on, by showing him rack up parking tickets, fail at his job delivering meat, disappoint his family, disappoint his girlfriend, and get turned down for loan applications. He owes some thugs about 80,000, and no way to pay it back.

And there was a screw up a fertility clinic about 20ish years ago. David donated sperm over 600 times in a few years, under the name of Starbuck, and because of its high quality, it was given to and successfully birthed 533 children. Over 100 of them are suing the company and David to determine his identity, believing their right to know their biological father is far more important to his right to privacy. Huh.

Who wants to be known as the guy with 500 kids? Especially when his girlfriend (Cobie Smulders) is pregnant and can’t imagine him ever being a father.

Basically his life is falling apart and he has no idea how to fix it. Maybe he can fix the lives of others? Despite his best interests, and the wishes of his lawyer (Chris Pratt), he decides to check out the profiles of a child, just one at a time, and see if he can help out their life in any way while remaining anonymous.

Clearly a plan that won’t backfire.

His immediate family includes his father (Andrzej Blumenfeld), and two brothers (Simon DelaneyBobby Moynihan) and some of his children are played by Jack ReynorDave Patten, and Britt Robertson.

Robes
Really, if all you want is Chris Pratt in bath robes, then this is the movie for you.
From what the internet tells me, this is actually a scene for scene remake of Starbuck, so I don’t feel too bad not getting to watch the original before this one. The last time I attempted to do something like that was when I watched both Death At A Funerals back to back, and that was just awkward.

Speaking of awkward, that is this movie in a nutshell. It touches on a lot of personal and serious topics, but generally in a strange way given the circumstances of this film. I find it hard to categorize it as a comedy, because although the idea is silly, the jokes are really few and far in between and it gets really dramatic. If you go in expecting a laugh a minute, you will be disappointed.

Vince Vaughn plays a screw up who has his heart in the right place. The reason that sounds familiar is that he always plays those roles, because he is somewhat believable at them. I am not sure how to describe the emotions I felt during this movie, but I can tell you they were there.

I think the movie did far too much disservice early on by making me hate the main character. It was vague on a few important details, like just who was after him for money and why they were surprisingly passive over 7-9 months. The passage of time was very hard to follow, when months would pass for his character without letting the viewer know. Certain problems ended up getting solved too easily and David had a surprising amount of money to give to use for his kids, and gas, and shopping when he owed so much cash in the first place.

I can’t say for certain if this film will stick with me in the long run, but for now it is a decent attempt at trying something new (well, a remake of something new), and I can applaud it for that. It also does a good job of teaching about the potential horrors of sperm bank.

2 out of 4.

Crystal Fairy

Shit, I don’t even know the name of this movie. On IMDB, on the internet, on other reviews, on wiki, everyone lists it as just plain old Crystal Fairy.

But the DVD and DVD Cover state Crystal Fairy & The Magical Cactus. Who do I believe?!

The reason I am watching this movie is because of the director, Sebastian Silva. He made a movie, in Chile, with Michael Cera as one of the lead roles, named Mirror Mirror. While he was there living with his family, Silva I guess decided to do another movie. This one, still set in Chile, but with Cera as the lead role. I guess this director dude just really really likes Michael Cera.

Smiles
Who wouldn’t with a smile like that?

As I said, this movie takes place in Chile, and like the other other movie that takes place in Chile (Aftershock), there is only one white character with a bunch of Chilean friends. Jamie (Michael Cera), is your typical American tourist. Not much is given on what he does normally, how long he is there, or what. But we know he likes to party, wants to drugs, and even more so, drink from the San Pedro cactus that grows in this area. It is a bit rare, I guess, but it might have some hallucinogens in it if you make it right (like, 9 hours of cooking), and it is supposedly like a trip like no other.

He was heading on a few day trip with some friends, Champa (Juan Andres Silva), Lel (Jose Miguel Silva), and Pilo (Agustin Silva), to acquire a cactus and drink it on a beach and experience that feeling, but the night before hand he meets Crystal Fairy (Gaby Hoffman).

While on crack, he loves her and invites her along, despite his friends warning him not to. Well he does. And he regrets it.

She is a free spirit with no money and he finds her annoying. But his friends, to be frank are finding him a bit annoying as well. Fucking Americans.

But really. Will his trip end with the trip he has always wanted? We will see.

Sons
Did you miss the naming convention of the other guys on the trip? Yep. All of the director’s sons.

So the director likes Michael Cera, and puts his sons in his movies. I mean, Agustin Silva was in Magic Magic as a guy named Agustin. Crazy.

But Gaby Hoffman is the weird one. She looks familiar, and I don’t know why. So I look it up! She was the little girl in Field of Dreams. The one who helps with the creepy prophecies. Well, you will be happy to know she is super naked in this film, a lot multiple times, fully, and if that doesn’t make you feel awkward knowing full well you know her most famous role, then I don’t know what will.

I believe this movie did a good job of giving a realistic portrayal of a trip which is basically the last 30 minutes of the film. I hated Cera and Hoffman, annoyed equally at them, and their behavior towards each other, which means they are acting their roles perfectly.

But I can’t help feel like this movie just didn’t really do anything, despite the good acting, and the almost interesting story line. I wanted more. Not more awkward scenes, just more reason to care.

2 out of 4.

Knife Fight

I was really worried going in to watch Knife Fight. Not because of the actors, or the plot, or the director. No, it was because of the previews before the movie.

There were four, and all of the movies either got a 2 or lower from me, so nothing really excited me from the group. Those movies were Love and Honor, On The Road, Save The Date, and Price Check. Ugh.

Seriously, seeing something like that before a film can depress a man. Thankfully, I forgot about the previews after only a few minutes in.

Lowe
It’s the hair. How can you still find hate with that hair there?

Paul Turner (Rob Lowe) is a political strategist. Behind every great politician, there was a Paul Turner. He helps the politician talk to the press, to say the right thing, and to handle spin control. New story bad for our guy coming out? How can Paul Turner fix it.

He has two candidates that he is working with and soon to be a third.

Larry Becker (Eric McCormack) is already in office, but he hasn’t made the corporations happy. So his opponent is a baseball legend, being funded quite a large sum of money, finding every possible way to attack him. He also might have had an affair.

Stephen Green (David Harbour) is an all around great guy, who cares about where he comes from, a war hero, but had developed a bad back. With a bad back, he has found himself on the massage table quite often and may have had an affair.

Huh. I see a pattern.

Penelope Nelson (Carrie-Anne Moss) is not a politician, but a doctor who helps run a free clinic and wants to fix the town. She is a really really hard sale, to even get her name out there, but at least she hasn’t had an affair. …. …. …. Or has she?

Also starring Jamie Chung as Paul’s new assistant, and Julie Bowen / Richard Schiff as political helpers as well. That’s right, a mini The West Wing reunion in a movie about politics.

Creep
Yes, I do find that peephole-ish view of this scene a tad bit creepy.

Overall, I can say this movie was okay. It was decent. A true earner of the 2 out of 4 rating.

It would have rated lower if it weren’t for the hilarious political ads. Every single one of them, on both Rob Lowe’s side and the opponents side parodied actual ads and just felt amazing. They were of course ridiculous, but it just made them better. I loved them. By far my favorite part of the movie.

I also enjoyed some of the twists near the end. After all, the character has to make some pretty important decisions about his candidate, including throwing other people under the bus and possibly affecting their future just to get ahead in the polls. It could have dealt with these choices a bit better, but at least they were alluded too.

The acting wasn’t anything special by anyone, but the final speech by David Harbour to get his character out of trouble I thought was really well done/written. You go David Harbour.

Decent film, might hold your interest for an afternoon.

2 out of 4.

The Best Man Holiday

I’d imagine it is really hard to make a sequel for a film fifteen years later. Especially a movie that wasn’t a big commercial success, but that is just what The Best Man Holiday decided to do. If Before Midnight can complete an eighteen year trilogy, set that many years apart, why can’t this film do the same?

For those of you looking to watch this film without the first film, The Best Man, I would advise against it. Holiday does its best to catch you up through an opening credit montage, but without the first film, you will probably be lost for at least a good half hour into the film.

Boy Band
But you don’t have to know the first film to know that this scene gunna be gud.

After all, its been 15 years since our gang of friends last hung out, since the wedding of star New York Giants running back, Lance (Morris Chestnut) to his lovely lady Mia (Monica Calhoun). But Mia has been persistent, and really wants all Lance’s old friends back into his life. After all, he is set to retire from the NFL after the last game this season, in which he might break the all time rushing yard record. So eventually the gang agrees to spend their holidays in New York, despite the turmoil in their own lives.

Like Harper (Taye Diggs), who hasn’t had a best selling book in awhile and was recently laid off from NYU thanks to budget cuts. The good news is, his wife (Sanaa Lathan) is finally pregnant and almost due (despite years of bad luck on that front). The bad news is they are broke. His agent suggests he gains the rights to do the biography on Lance, his old friend, as a sure way of getting him back into fray.

Julian (Harold Perrineau) has gotten his life together and started up a school that runs solely off of donations, with his wife (Regina Hall) with an administration position. But when her past profession as a stripper comes up through a YouTube video, losing Julian $2 million in funds, will he be able to still accept the past that he knew he was getting in to? His ex, Shelby (Melissa De Sousa) went from controlling to drama queen, and is a star of one of those “Real Housewife” shows now. She is a friend of Mia, so of course she gets invited too, just to make Julian miserable.

Quentin (Terrence Howard) is loving the single life, a general foul-mouthed comic relief, and a music producer or something. Let’s just say he too is pretty rich.

Jordin (Nia Long), the woman Harper used to like before his wife, is now a head executive at MSNBC and dating Brad (Eddie Cibrian), a white man.

All of these issues and a lot more come up during the week, as disease has also taken hold of one of our members, turning this comedy-drama into a drama-comedy for the second half.

Dressed
Best dressed goes to Michael with the bow tie, I think.

I never thought I would have a lot to say about The Best Man Holiday, but here I am. I should note I never saw the original movie when it came out, seeing it for the first time earlier this week. It was okay and was interesting to see a lot of now bigger stars in some of their first big roles. I was pleased that it was a movie with an all black cast, their color had almost nothing to do with their characters/identity and everyone was just a person. Holiday continues that theme, and more.

Morris mother fucking Chestnut.

The biggest surprise of the movie to me was that man. All the other actors are well known for for their movie or TV roles in the last fifteen years, but not so much Morris. He is only well known for playing a detective/officer in films (Examples OneTwoThreeFour).

Needless to say, these roles never really give him a lot of time to really develop a character or have an amazing personality, but this film allows that to happen. His character is a god and family loving, moral, athletic superstar. It is really hard to not like him, but more importantly, Morris knocks it out of the park. I have never seen him so good, so in character. I want him in more movies, and darn it, I want him to be a lead role.

The movie itself is definitely a tearjerker. There were not many people during my showtime but throughout it I could see and hear sniffling from the fellow movie goers. It wasn’t just sad moments, thankfully, but a back and forth between sad and uplifting.

Overall, I would say I enjoyed watching The Best Man Holiday and think it is way better than the first film. Unfortunately, it is also entirely filled with cliches and moments you can see coming from miles away. Nothing is really surprising in the film and it doesn’t really offer anything new. Of what the film does offer, it offers a lot of it, and you may get lost in some of the plot lines, but eventually everything will feel in place. If you enjoyed the first film, you will love the sequel.

2 out of 4.

Pulling Strings

I got very excited about watching Pulling Strings in theaters. Why? Because I had no idea what the movie was about. Zero. Never heard of it. But there it was, just a movie, screening in front of a boy, asking him to love it.

Mostly because I was the only one in the theater. Looks like no one else heard of it either. I was even more excited when I found out it was not rated. What hijinks might this movie provide? Sex on sex? Drugs on sex on crime? Who knows.

Wait. Or it could just be foreign. They don’t rate those movies always. If so, it’s probably just PG or something. Lame.

Mariachi
Foreignness confirmed.

Alejandro (Jaime Camil) is the lead singer of a mariachi band in Mexico City, Mexico. There are a lot of mariachi bands there, but he is the best singer, so really no competition at all. He used to write a lot of original songs too. Until, the incident.

This is actually a real incident, his wife died. Very sad. Now he is a single father, and he is failing at it. Because he works at night, the catholic church school feel like he is being a bad influence on his daughter. He is also in debt to some bad people. So he wants to send her away to her grandparents in Arizona, he just has to get a visa first. Well Rachel (Laura Ramsey) ain’t having none of his shit. He has none of the required forms, no stable income, a non official lease for his house. Nothing. No visa. She barely even looks at him or listens to him.

Speaking of Rachel, she is totally getting transferred to London, but her mother (Stockard Channing) disapproves and wants her to come home. The mom character annoys the piss out of me this movie, even though I think they were going for sympathetic, so I am done talking about her.

Anyways, she gets super drunk at her going away party (which Alejandro performs at), tries to sleep on a bus station, but Alejandro won’t allow that. She won’t tell him her address, because she doesn’t want to go home drunk to her mom, so he just takes her to his house. But she freaks out the next morning when she can’t find a laptop from her boss (Tom Arnold), which has important government data on it. Alejandro finds it in his house, but decides to lead her on a multi day ruse first, where he helps her find it through the back alleys of Mexico, with “scary people” just played by his friends. This will show him as dependable, hard working, smart, and get him that visa! He is …pulling her strings, and also pulls strings on his guitar. Get it?

Alejandro’s best friend comes along for the ride (Omar Chaparro), and also Rachel’s best friend every once in awhile (Catherine Papile).

Road Trip
All in the sexiest van known to man. What an adventure this will be!

For those wondering, this movie is not 100% Spanish. Heck no, we got at least four American characters in here, and they are all embassy people or mothers, so when they interact, all English baby. Also, Rachel doesn’t know Spanish fluently, so she mostly speaks in English to Alejandro. So there is that.

And because we are dealing with a mariachi singer, we totally get a lot of mariachi music. And shit, that Jaime Camil guy can really sing. They gave us subtitles during that part, but I chose to ignore them, because reading lyrics is stupid. I just wanted to feel the music, and the music felt good.

Like any romance movie, this one is based off of lies. They will fall in love, but when she finds out he was lying for two days, she won’t like that. We do get other cliches, we even get the rush to the airport to stop her one. Thankfully, the cliches it seems to openly acknowledge, so we end up getting changes from the norm at the same time.

Overall, I thought this was a really cute movie. It had music, it had a budding romance, it had comedy, and it had a cute ending. 100% of the people in the theater with my agreed with this rating.

3 out of 4.

Prince Avalanche

Prince Avalanche has the distinction of being the only indie movie this week to come out and actually catch my interest. That interest is easily described coming from two factors.

One – It has a name of Prince Avalanche. What is going on there? I want to be a royal disaster, too!

Two – It has Paul Rudd in it. This might have helped my decision even more than note one.

Work Hard
Well, it is good that the people in this movie work hard.

Alvin (Rudd) and Lance (Emile Hirsch) are construction workers, more or less, working in a remote area. Super remote. Like, only tagging three actors overall remote. It is also set in the 1980s, so a lot of technological luxuries are not present. Just two guys and a truck. Monday through Friday, they work and camp out in the area, drawing lines on the high way, random other bullshit work, who really knows. But on the weekend they can continue with their social lives and interact with their loved ones.

Alvin has a girlfriend, and that girlfriend’s brother happens to be Lance. Aw. It is like they decided together to work this summer because they already knew each other kind of.

They are pretty different, Alvin is a lot more calm and stern, while Lance isn’t an exceptionally hard worker and not really self confident. So he is learning a lot from Alvin.

But things happen in their social lives, those things bringing back both positive and negative energy back to their work environment, making it potentially very difficult.

Also, there is a truck driver (Lance LeGault) who has some speaking lines more than once in this film. Hello truck driver man!

Play Hard
Oooh, they play hard as well!

I really do hate writing reviews out of movies that I get practically nothing out of.

Prince Avalanche is an indie comedy/drama, a pretty standard one at that. What do I mean? I mean not a lot happens in this movie, despite being the length of a normal movie. Realism is taken to the extreme, and we have two guys who work, play, and talk with each other, sometimes yell, and that is about it. Writing that plot description pained me because I really didn’t imagine writing more than two sentences. So if it sounded like stalling, yeah, it basically was.

Not a lot from this story grasped my interest in any way, so it really felt like a battle to get through. The acting? Sure, its okay. Pretty “regular” if anything.

I’d say avoid. It isn’t a complete piece of shit, just felt like a complete waste of time.

1 out of 4.

Paranormal Whacktivity

“This sounds like a porno.”

That is what the man at the video rental store told me. I agreed. Didn’t even think of that somehow.

I think this is the fifth film I have reviewed that begins with “Para.”

Strangely enough, I didn’t really love any of the first four either. Science tells me that trend will continue with Paranormal Whacktivity.

Bed
Yep, we got another damn spoof here.

This is a spoof on Paranormal Activity. One of many, yes, this is just another one.

But this couple is having problems being intimate. And that is mostly because of the demon haunting the house pleasuring the wife, Kasey (Sasha Formoso) at night. The guy, Michael (William Patrick Riley) is a dumb ass, video taping every thing, wanting to make a movie.

It then spends a lot of time trying to spoof other things. Like Ghostbusters, Avatar and there is a line by line remake of a scene from Superbad, just randomly thrown into the middle. The fuck? None of these are even like, modern horrors. Many of these are years late. Was this made in 2009 and considered fresh but hidden for a few years?

I will spoil this. They trick the demon into falling in love with another chick after a big house party, and he leaves them alone. That is also because our main girl has decided to stay with her husband, awww. How sweet.

Scream
They look like they are still joking around, even when they scream.

The demon is of course a midget. Because why not.

This was meant to be a comedy. A sexy comedy. But definitely a comedy. Unfortunately they forgot the laughs. They also made the mistake a lot of movies do. Just because a plot point is about sex (or lack thereof), it does not make it sexy. Having a bunch of random attractive doesn’t make it sexy on its own. Heck, this movie I think barely even earns its R rating. I guess it was given to the movie for like, two topless scenes? But it is a pretty weak R besides that.

Parody movies can be done well, and this is an example of one that was done really really badly.

If I could erase this movie from my mind, I would. I’d watch a movie that isn’t even cleverly titled called Paranormal Parody.

Heck, I’d almost rather watch 30 Nights Of Paranormal Activity with the Devil Inside the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo than this again. Okay, not that desperate. I don’t think I could even touch that movie without forever becoming jaded and insecure.

Back to Paranormal Whacktivity. Don’t watch it. Shit’s bad. It maybe could have been good. But it is bad. Hell, the woman on the cover isn’t even in the movie. Fuck all of that.

0 out of 4.

Austenland

What would the world be like, without Jane Austen? I mean, she is basically the go to source for Victorian era living, of all social groups, right? So, without her, people might not ever aspire to be…well, Elizabeth Bennet, I guess.

I’ve actually read Pride and Prejudice too, I know, surprising. I have also seen the movie, Sense and Sensibility, and a few movies modeled off of the two. But never something like this. Never something like Austenland.

FOTC
Austenland, where everyone is so hot, it makes people sexist.

Let’s talk about Jane Hayes (Keri Russell). She really likes Jane Austen. Like. Really. She has been obsessed with finding her own Mr. Darcy since she was a little girl, and really that is all she thinks about. It has even started to affect her work life.

Well, thanks to some inner city pressure, she finally breaks down and puts her entire life savings into a trip to Austenland! Austenland?? Yes, Austenland. A week long vacation in England to live like they did in Austen times, and experience a person like a character out of a book. Hooray. No, having a week long trip with a fake romance is not a bad idea, just think about it.

The good news is, when she gets there, she is still the most beautiful girl in the room, she just didn’t get a deluxe package so she doesn’t get all the cool stuff with the other guests, Miss Elizabeth Charming (Jennifer Coolidge), very rich, and Lady Amelia Heartwright (Georgia King), a leggie blonde.

But which of these gentlemen will she end up with? There is Mr. Henry Noble (JJ Feild), clearly a Darcy carbon copy, Colonel Andrews (James Callis), very rich and extravagant and nothing like Gaius Baltar, or Captain George East (Ricky Whittle), from the west indies and foreign! But maybe she doesn’t intend to spend her business time with any of them. Maybe she is actually just interested in the stable boy / butler (Bret McKenzie), who is totally real with her and letting her escape the Victorian era she thought she loved so much.

Either way, just because she kisses one guy, they have to realize that a kiss is not a contract.

Also starring Jane Seymour as the hostess, who is not going to meddle with the love affairs of her guests…unless you’re into it. Okay I am done.

Jenny.

the gang
The gang’s all here. So what do they do now? Shit’s boring without internet.

It turns out, Austenland is super fucked up. No, it isn’t just a simple romance comedy. It is very fucked up. Like the end of Bubble Boy fucked up. So somewhat comedic, but also really just out there. I won’t go into it any more, but that is what I felt by the end.

Austenland takes a ridiculous concept, and ridiculous characters and decides to make a movie. The beginning is a mess, and adding Jennifer Coolidge has never made me think better of a movie.

But it does have its moments. There are obvious references to Austen’s work. The male suitors are very entertaining, while being over the top. The plot line between “Darcy”/Bret/Keri was actually interesting by the end, go figure.

And sure, we ended with a relatively happy ending, but sad endings in a romance would be stupid. Austenland may be stupid, but it isn’t that stupid.

2 out of 4.