Tag: Comedy

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Am I doing it right? Definitely not at all to be confused with Ghost World, which is about Scarlett Johansson handling 2nd billing early in her career.

No, Ghost Town actually has ghosts in it. And it assumes there is an after life. Controversy? Not at all. People love ghosts. As long as they aren’t trying to kill them.

Currently no idea if these are the ghosts people love.

Ricky Gervais is a Dentist but hates people. Social situations he is not the best in, and tends to always keep to himself. Won’t even hold an elevator. Doesn’t talk to his coworkers. But when he goes into a routine surgery for some bowels problem, due to an anesthesia error he technically died for about eight minutes. He only found this out after asking his surgeon, Kristen Wiig, if any complications arose because he claims to be having hallucinations.

Turns out those hallucinations are real, and that they are ghosts! Ghosts who find it odd that a live person can see them, so they begin to harass him into helping him solve some of their last wishes. Because clearly if Ghost stuff is happening, their time on the Earth isn’t over! One of the more persistent ghosts is Greg Kinnear, who we get to see die first in the film! He was a cheating son of a gun, getting a new apartment just to have to cheat with his wife, Tea Leoni. But she finds out form the Realtor, and just assumes it was a gift for the both of them! Yay new place.

Well that apartment building is where Ricky lives and he has been very unpleasant to her. When he finds out Greg’s goal is to stop her marriage to a human rights lawyer, Billy Campbell, because he is a “bad guy”, he agrees only because the rest of the ghosts are supposed to leave him a lone. They agree the best plan of action is to get her to fall for someone else (awkward) and by george, Ricky wants to do it himself.

But he is still an asshole / bad guy / socially inept. Not to mention Greg lied about getting the other ghosts to back off. What else was he lying about? MORE QUESTIONS THAT MAKE YOU WONDER WHAT WILL HAPPEN? Also, lots of other ghosts. But Alan Ruck is one, so he is my favorite.

This is my idea of a good time.

First off, Wiig was only in this movie for about two scenes. Pre surgery, and worrying about his hallucinations post surgery. The first scene isn’t really much, but that second scene is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in awhile. I’ve seen the first part of it on Scene It before, and now it all makes sense. So she gets a credit role for that.

The plot is kind of predictable, just not the path. You know eventually he will probably begin to change his ways, be more friendly, help out the other Ghosts, etc. Maybe find love? But it wasn’t a straight line and was an actual good journey. Took some elements from a 90s movie Heart and Souls, staring a pre-coked Robert Downey Jr, but neither were the first to assume ghosts are on Earth until they finish a task.

But I found the only thing not only funny but enjoyable. Pretty much the exact opposite of The Invention Of Lying, another Gervais “comedy”. Plot was descent for what it was, and didn’t go into any sort of religious stance.

I’d like to think that they made This Means War after the successes of Knight and Day and Killers, the former that I love, the later that I don’t ever want to see. I mean, Spies and love seemed to have work. So why not actually make it spies competing for love?

It’s like lets take all the action from those movies, and turn it into zany hijinks to learn secrets about a woman and win her heart?

This is the kind of stuff that encourage people to stalk their loved ones.

Lauren (Reese Witherspoon) is just a girl, who does product testing for a living in a city where she is alone except for one of her good friends (Chelsea Handler). She has relationship problems, because she moved there to be with her ex, who ended up cheating on her. So she dumped him. But she is all alone now! And the ex is totally getting married to the woman who was the cheatee. Damn.

Tuck (Tom Hardy) and FDR (Chris Pine) are CIA operatives who are a bit too reckless, so they get grounded for a bit. Finding themselves with a lot of free time, they go back on the market. Tuck, while being British, also has a young son, and an ex wife (who didn’t like all of his travel as a “Travel Agent”), decides to join a dating website where he meets Lauren. FDR, a ladies man, ends up meeting Lauren at a movie rental place (those exist?) and she doesn’t like him at first, but has to go on a date with him just because he is persistent.

Little do they know they are now pursuing the same girl, so they lay some ground rules. No letting her know their real identities (a given), that they know each other, and definitely no sex, not until she has picked. But they also have to do some CIA things, like stop some Heinrich (Til Schweiger) guy that only kind of matters to the plot. Mostly at the end to fuck things up.

Speaking of fuck things up, Lauren ends up liking both guys, and vice versa, who saw that coming? Her friend encourages her to date both, but when she still can’t decide, the tiebreaker has to go down to the “Fuck test”. Ruh roh. Their job is effected, loss of friends, loss of trust, spy problems, etc. In other news, I wish this was a Warhammer game, because the title could have been more epic.

This. Means. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

That joke is for a very specific kind of nerd.

Here is where I say there was good and bad parts of the movie, overall just making it okay. I liked the plot actually, but thought it ended lame. I didn’t think there was much chemistry between either couple, although the guys felt like friends for most of the movie.

I didn’t like the force villain approach either. Makes since for them to have to do actually do a job eventually, but eh, if they were grounded, the whole movie could have just been them doing spy things to spy on the girl, and interfere with each others dates. Actual action every once in awhile just felt weird.

None of the performances are too great either. Just okay.

The Bucket List, if anything, did have a lot of people talking about it. Most of which I doubt who saw it. I mean, why would you need to? You know exactly what happens in this movie from the title. Two old guys, living their last months to the fullest (somehow) and then probably dying. Both probably have some sort of family problem.

You know all of that, because the movie isn’t about surprises or the best plot, just one of those heartwarming tales that might make your cry or feel good.

That’s why it has took me til now to watch it. Really no need, but hey, I had to watch it eventually. Not because of a lame joke about needing to watch it before I died, just because I owned it and needed to watch it.

Before I died. >.>

Unrelated Orange picture? Or the rage you feel right now as I babble?

Blah Blah Blah. Morgan Freeman is an old man, mechanic, pretty smart because he reads a lot. Has a wife, Beverly Todd, has faith, and has a big family. But then he gets a terminal illness. Jack Nicholson, uber rich guy gets put in his room, also with cancer. Sharing rooms?! Yes, because he was a mean hospital owner and said each room needs two beds, to maximize efficiency and make more money. So when he finally gets sick and wants his own room, his assistant, Sean Hayes, won’t let him, as it’d be a horrible PR move.

Chemo happens, it sucks. And eventually they bond. Jack see’s Morgan’s bucket list, full of ridiculous items, like being President, and tells him they should both do it. Leave his family, travel the world, money is no option, fuck the metaphors. And eventually he says sure. Skydiving, racing, Great Wall Of China, Pyramids, etc.

But how far will Morgan go to experience life to the fullest? A man who has only been with one woman, who he has left her behind to see the world? Also, will Jack be less of a dick, and visit his family for once in his life? I think you know the answer to both of them.

Chances of green screens being involved? Pretty high.

But was I entertained is the bigger question?

Ehh not really. Morgan Freeman’s character made a good argument why he should get the chance to do whatever he wants before he ends his life, which he seems to have gotten chastised for by everyone for doing it. Bitches, please. Even Freeman’s acting I thought was just okay. But Jack Nicholson had a much more powerful character to me, and thought he did a lot better.

He was also the only character we got to see keeling over in cancer pain. Correlation?

But yeah, this movie did absolutely nothing to me, and despite the fact that people will still make a lot more bucket list references for the next few years, I will never see it again.

Lower Learning is a brand new take on the corrupt and out of control high school where the students and teachers have to fight back in order to not get closed down.

And that just means it takes place in an elementary school instead.

Mad Libs is also instant entertainment.

Jason Biggs is a vice principal at an elementary school, where life sucks every day. He feels like he does nothing with his job, mostly because the principal Rob Corddry doesn’t let him. He just goes to work, has a boring day, and goes home to his boring life. But out of the blue, he sees Eva Longoria, whom he went to school with. He was nerdy back then but always had a crush on her. But she has bad news, at the end of the day the school will be closing down.

Oh noes! Well it makes sense, when you have teachers who are depressed and drinking, Monica Potter, having weird boxing style tournaments, Will Sasso, incredibly good at teaching but inappropriately talking about sex, Nat Fixon, while also going after the nurse, Jill Latiano, it all just makes sense. Others are on drugs, some refuse to teach. No fucks are given at this school, except by Biggs.

It is more weird when he finds out that no one seems to care. Tenure and shit. But something else is off, why is the principal trying so hard to get the school shut down? Secret embezzlement of millions of dollars you say? That’s strange indeed! Also Ed Helms has a small role as a board member who is way too needy.

I mean, he was losing to a GIRL.

As the plot unfolded I thought it was kind of interesting. Some of the jokes given by the teachers were pretty good as well.

But it did not unravel the way I had expected. It got a bit lamer, and lamer, until the ending was a big…ehh whatever. Worst unfurling ever.

That is pretty much the only way I can described it. Kind of interesting, yet getting more and more disappointing. High potential, low follow through. It just felt like train wreck. Assuming I knew what those felt like.

I am proud that I used unfolded unravel, and unfurled though.

Ooh, Noise. That would be either some vague horror movie, or another remake of The Grinch.

Obviously it is neither, but man, wouldn’t some gritty remake of The Grinch be cool? Something rated R, yet also still not a horror movie.

I’d watch it.

Quick googling says there is no such thing as a Gritty Grinch. Yet.

Instead of my bizarre idea, this movie goes one step bizarrier (Level 2 spell?). It stars mild mannered Tim Robbins. He lives and works in New York city, with his wife, Bridget Moynahan, and their young daughter. But every night the same thing happens. The noise never stops. More specifically, the car alarms, but all the excess noises are a big problem in his eyes.

It makes the baby wake up, and makes it so no one can sleep well, and also makes him limp. Err. Well because the cops never seem to do something about it, he decides to do his own punishment. First he starts slow, deflating a tire or whatever. But eventually he is full on rage mode, smashing the window open to pop the trunk, to cut the line to the battery, just to shut it off. 3 minutes is too long for an alarm to go, given that most people ignore alarms anyways and probably do more harm than good.

He becomes known as The Rectifier, a sort of vigilante punishing those who don’t turn off their alarms. He does try to use the courts to his advantage, but each time his case is thrown out. After his wife makes him leave for his obsession, he meets a Russian student, Margarita Levieva, who helps him start a simple petition to change some car alarm laws and make it fine-able which gets huge support. But the Mayor (William Hurt) and his assistant (William Baldwin) don’t like it just because it seems to support vigilantism, so they put a stop to it.

So it becomes up to Tim Robbins to find a way to get his law passed, any means possible.

Look at all that rage. Yeah, he clearly mad.

I will keep this short and sweet. This movie was weird, yes, which I like. The beginning felt pretty good but died down after about twenty or so minutes. The ending was also strong, I liked what he decided to do in order to finally get his ordinance passed. But a whole lot of the middle was kind of boring. I didn’t even like their quick country plantation visit, where he found that the noise problems still exist outside of the city.

It is a bad problem, no one likes it but everyone accepts it and his character cannot fathom why they should accept it any longer. So he decides to spend a long time trying to combat it, and it is kind of awesome in an “unexpected hero” sort of way. I was surprised this wasn’t based on some real life story of a guy who hated the alarms that much.

But man, if it was a bit better in the middle, this movie would be a lot better.

Hey, I bet by the name alone that you will think Eagle vs Shark is a super weird comedy?

Yep.

I don’t usually want people to judge the movie by its cover, but using the cover to help get yourself in the right mood has never been a bad thing.

Yep, it is going to be one of those kind of movies.

This is a movie about socially awkward people, and love. Lily (Loren Horsley) lives with her brother (Joel Tobeck), who is a cartoonist, while she works at a burger joint. They are devoid of good technology apparently, because after she takes an order from the customer, she apparently has to walk back and tell the kitchen. Fast food joints there are weird.

Either way she was picked “randomly” to have her job cut, because corporate demanded it, so she is kind of meh, and decides to try and get that cute customer who always walks in, Jarrod (Jemaine Clement) on his lunch break. After finally talking with him, he asks her to invite another girl to his “Animal” party, where everyone dresses up as their favorite animal. There is also a video game fighting tournament, which she kicks ass at. Then they awkwardly kiss and have some sex.

Hooray, now kind of dating. But Jarrod is a jerk, yet she still likes him. He convinces the brother to drive them to his parents house (pretty far away). He hates his family, but he is there for revenge, to KILL someone! A bully in middle school, who used to beat him and others up all the time. Well now after all his training (Video games) he is ready to take him on once he returns from afar.

But also his family doesn’t seem to be impressed enough by Lily, so he kind of breaks up with her, in the middle of the stay, with no way to leave.

Yep. More asshole than awkward. Either way, the rest of the trip is super weird and the eventual fight and return. And shit, that is about it.

Looks like Business Time to me.

I can’t say I am expert on New Zealand film, as this might be the only one I have seen. Definitely seen NZ tv shows, if we say Flight of the Conchords counts. But it is definitely a lot dryer and maybe sometimes subtler than other forms of humor.

And it is about 100% of this movie. Sure it has its wtf moments as well, but most of it is relied just on the awkwardness of the two individuals, in the situation they are in and trying to be politer at all times. Very proper New Zealand tactics.

This movie wasn’t any where close to amazing, but it wasn’t horrible either. At least it tried something new, where new is just…mostly nothing.

Casino Jack is the second of “movies Kevin Spacey has been in recently that apparently no one has heard of”. Very specific theme. Only two I was doing, this and Shrink.

Oh how mysterious and …weirdly bordered he looks.

This is actually the true-ish story of Jack Abramoff, the most lobbyist lobbyist in the America.

Dude was making bank, and lobbying up a storm. People in Congress were making bank, him and his family were making bank. Evurrybody was living it up. On what? Indian Casinos. More specifically the SunCruz Casinos, that go on a cruise to “nowhere” but mostly to get into international waters.

Him and his partner Michael Scanlon (Barry Pepper) are getting rich and quick. But they make it seem like Abramoff is donating a lot more to charities, and the betterment of his love one and not “wasting it” as much. His wife (Kelly Preston) is worried about their finances, and then eventually on where they come form.

Their bigger problems start when the help of Mattress Kingpin Adam Kidan (Jon Lovitz), who unbeknownst to the rest of them, has ties with the mob and other bad people.

This eventually leads to a series of events that brings down their decline, and prosecutors having a field day with the amount of people who accepted the bribes. It was a pretty serious deal. Wiki that stuff. Yet somehow no one seems to remember it, despite its large implications. Oh and Rachelle Lefevre is in this movie. But I just forgot what her actually role was. Whoops.

Also, yelling!

Kevin Spacey has turned into the king of mediocrity? No, that’s not right. He is decent in this movie as well. But the rest? Damn, thats mediocre. Like a lot of his last few years worth of movies. I guess he just does what ever looks interesting, gives it his all, and not everyone else can be as good as him.

Maybe if he was worse the movie would seem better because everyone is acting as good as Spacey? This is some serious conspiracy Keanu stuff here.

But why do I say that? Well, parts of the movie were interesting. Parts went above my head. But parts were also pretty uninteresting. Overall just okay, again. Like Father of Invention. Oh yeah. Another recent Kevin Spacey movies.

Just saying. His movies tend to be better with a lot more known leads, like Margin Call, or Horrible Bosses, when he doesn’t have to carry the load on his back.

Zombies!

And lawls?

Alright. It has been done before. But by the British, and no one likes the British. So an American version might be more crude, or at the very least, better graphics. I’m talking 3D stuff. Or at least flashy lights. It is a Zombieland after all.

Consider my dreams reached.

How did the zombie outbreak happen? Some bad meat or something, but it spread quickly like all zombie out breaks. And these get to be the weird ass fast zombies. Thankfully our hero, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) has a list of rules to keep him alive. Work out his cardio, be afraid of bathrooms, always wear a seatbelt, double tap to assure death, etc. Definitely don’t be a hero. This is a war! Because he was a nerdy shut in, he missed out a lot on the initial craziness, when his neighbor from 406 (Amber Heard) attacked him. Sucks, because she was hot too.

He meets Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a middle aged man who wasn’t good at much, but turns out is very good at killing zombies. They have code name in order to not get close to each other. Such as where they are from or where they are heading. He is a simple man, who just wants to survive, and really find a twinkie to eat.

They meet Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), who con them out of their vehicle and weapons. Shit is serious. Very rude. The rest of the movie involves them working to get their car back, possibly trusting strangers, and maybe even breaking a rule or two.

Oh, and there is a cameo by Bill Murray, which is great. Especially since I only like Murray when he is in cameo form.

\
Home run right there.

Good things tend to happen when you take an already outrageous accepted genre and do outrageous things during it. Most of the jokes don’t come from dialogue, they come from the few actors in this movie behaving to real zombie situations. Turns out it can be amusing to watch a bunch of fat zombies in a grocery store getting their heads knocked off with a bat. Or riding in a roller coaster with a shotgun. Or hitting a zombie by driving by with the door open, for shits and giggles.

The plot of the movie pretty much boils down to “The world has zombie now, it sucks, try to survive”. Really the only plot I could give was just back story that we learn throughout the movie, since I don’t want to actually say the entire story. That’d be bad for the four of you who haven’t seen Zombieland.

Its a very enjoyable movie with a budget big enough to put on some pretty over the top awesome scenes.

The Losers is one of those “Oh this is based on a comic? Why?” type movies. No super heroes involved, just your normal run of the mill elite black ops team, who gets set up/framed, and have to fix it. A story I might have wrote about yesterday, and very popular.

This movie came out around the same time as The A-Team though, which means you were far more likely to not ever see or hear of The Losers, as they are easily compared.

But this one has more than four people. And a woman! Eventually.

Ooh, lets try and do this the team way!
First we have Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) the leader of the group.
Then there is Roque (Idris Elba) the second in command.
Jensen ( Chris Evans) is the communications/tech guy, and a lot of the comic relief.
Pooch (Columbus Short) is the driver, and soon to be family man.
And finally, Cougar (Oscar Jaenada) their ‘long range specialist/sniper’, wears a hat, and doesn’t talk much (At all). So mysterious. So deadly.

Well the missions they take are never officially wrote down, very very covert, don’t technically exist in the government. They are in Bolivia on a search and destroy mission for a drug cartel, but find that the camp has dozens of slave children. They try to call off the attack to their handler, Max (Jason Patric) but he ignores them. So they do the reasonable thing, break into the compound, kill the drug lord, rescue the children and barely escape!

On the helicopter sent to pick them up, they decide to stay behind and save the children instead. And when it gets up to leave. BAM. Missile. It was meant to kill them instead. They know there will be huge back lash here, so they decide to fake their deaths as if they were in the helicopter, and plot their revenge against Max. Which they get four months later, when another mysterious person, Aisha (Zoe Saldana) has a plan. But can she be trusted.

Stealing hard drives, and getting to Max is the rest of the movie, and having to go through his “top notch security” (Holt McCallany). Also filled with betrayal, the Losers try and stop Max before he acquires new age weapon technology, and you know, start a new world war.

The “mind bullets/tech support” scene is one of the better scenes. Of all time. Complete with Journey!

Seriously though, you will probably enjoy that scene even without the rest of the movie. That is what comic relief character gets you. Great scenes.

It is definitely more action than comedy, not everything is laugh out loud heelarious, but the movie is not meant to be taken too seriously. The first picture of the review is just covered in campiness.

Other aspects I found boring. I enjoyed it, but on a rewatch, not as much interests me as it did before. So its definitely a one and done kind of film. Won’t blow your socks off, but can be enjoyed if you are in the right mood.

Confessions Of A Shopaholic looked like a fun romp through fashion and credit debt. Pretty much the funnest things ever, like, omg, am I right?

I don’t expect to find anything profound with this movie (like credit debt is bad? excessive shopping is bad?) but hopefully at least I will laugh a bit and not find every situation entirely avoidable. I mean, if the character is smart at least.

She looks like a fairy tale woman. Somehow in NYC she never gets mugged wearing stuff like this all day.

Anyways, the lesson you are supposed to learn is the difference between price and worth. But they say that a lot, don’t worry.

Isla Fisher likes to shop. She works at a garden magazine, but wants to do fashion! Loves credit cards, but has a problem paying them off. She even lives with her best friend, Krysten Ritter, and her boyfriend, and they all seem to help her avoid the creditors. Her parents (John Goodman, Joan Cusack) tried to teach her to value money and shop at thrift stores and saved up, but their hippie ways failed.

So she tries to work at a fashion magazine, but the only magazine owned by the corporation with an opening is the financing magazine, lead by Hugh Dancy. Despite a bad interview, she gets drunk and sends a letter to the fashion people with a sample article about worth, and hate mail to Hugh, but gets them mixed up. Congrats! She now has a job with a finance magazine, despite knowing close to nothing and being 15k in debt.

When she eventually gets an article published, it sky rockets as the next best thing. The owner of the corporation, John Lithgow, personally loves it, and so does the fashion people. Including some famous fashion person, played by Leslie Bibb. But she is a villain in the movie. So is Robert Stanton, a “mean old” debt collector who she is avoiding throughout the movie.

But will everyone realize she was lying the whole time, like he has been her whole life? What can she do to fuck up her friendships too? Can she bang the main editor, or will Bibb beat her to it?

In the ‘zine world, sleeping with your employees is fine.

Let me be detailed with why I dislike the movie now. Hooray!

1) All of her problems are easily fixable, and by never thinking they escalate. And yet still even after initial escalation, they are still easily fixable. By avoiding her debt collector, she sets up for him to go to drastic measures to catch her attention. By not telling her work, she sets up a big fall. Well, despite being a finance magazine, it didn’t mean she had to be good at paying bills.

2) Her friend got mad at her, because she lost the bridesmaids dress to a thrift store, and a homeless lady was wearing it. How? Because of the shopaholics meeting the friend made her attend, not from unwarranted spending. No reason for them to be mad at each other, as it wasnt Isla’s fault.

3) There was a tape to stop being a shopaholic, and involved throwing out all the excess. Well she didn’t. Guess how she raised her bill money?
By (gasp) selling a lot of her shit back. HOW IS THAT NOT THE MOST OBVIOUS THING EVER. You will be mad because that is clearly the right thing to do, and pays the bills, and good to go. But she keeps trying to throw it out, despite the debt? Dumb as shit.

4) Why the hell is the debt collector a villain? She pretty much stole from these companies for months and continuously lied to them. Yet she “gets him” at the end? That is some bullshit. Accept responsibility and pay your bills with class, please.

And you know, also weird messages about giving up on your dreams, and accepting the simpler things in life. Blah.