Tag: Comedy

Flora & Ulysses is the latest movie released straight to Disney Plus, and maybe would have gone to theaters if it didn’t exist? Hard to say.

This one is based on a popular book series, so it has a following already, but it is not a giant franchise everyone knows about.

It also involves superheroes. So Disney wants to win at the superhero game, so it is probably why they picked it up. And hey, now they can easily make references to Wolverine in the film and it doesn’t have to go through any weird legal loopholes.

Gotta be good to control everything.

Maybe feels better than being a little girl with a squirrel in a box. Flora (Matilda Lawler) is a superhero lover and a cynic (that latter fact she will say over and over again). She is pretty smart too. Her mom (Alyson Hannigan) is a romance novelist in a funk, probably due to her recent divorce. Her dad (Ben Schwartz) is a comic illustrator and creator, but he can’t get any of his work published and is going full midlife crisis and doesn’t know how to even.

But Flora is surviving it all. And she believes heroes might be out there. Not from hope, but through observations. And when she saves a squirrel from a vacuum cleaner that was behaving weirdly with straight up squirrel based CPR (yes, imagine it, yes), she thinks this might be his radioactive vat. Especially because he is strong, can maybe fly, and can type in English.

So Flora wants him to prove himself and find his purpose, but it seems like everyone is out to get her having a squirrel companion. Especially an animal control agent (Danny Pudi) who has a specific vendetta against squirrels.

So, is he really a superhero squirrel? Or was the real superhero squirrel the friends they made along the way?

Also starring Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, Anna Deavere Smith, Bobby Moynihan, and Kate Micucci.

I apparently was living just to eventually see Abed wrestle a CGI cat. DuckTales! Whoo-ooo! I have barely seen any of the new franchise that I know is ending soon, but it has had good reviews from kids and adults alike. And did you know that most of the main cast is in this film? Pudi/Schwartz/Moynihan/Micucci all have roles big or small. The only big name missing is David Tennant. It is a weird ole Disney Umbrella reunion.

Flora & Ulysses is an ideal family film. It has slapstick comedy and verbal comedy. It has good natured characters for the most part. People want others to succeed and want the best for everyone else. The squirrel is cute and destructive. It has references and jokes that only older people will get, without them being like “oooh adult jokes”. It was good fun for me and my kids of all ages.

I definitely enjoyed Pudi playing a cartoon villain like role. It was weird and fun to see Schwartz as just a good guy dad trying to protect his daughter. It was good to see Hannigan really just doing anything outside of host work since How I Met Your Mother. A fun cast with an interesting topic.

There is not much negative to say about the movie at all. I agree it probably wouldn’t have made a lot of money in the theaters, but seems like a perfect one to watch on screen at your home. It is a movie that I just gave a chance and it definitely hit those good feels throughout the run time.

3 out of 4.

Here it comes! Studio Ghibli has crossed a line many animation companies have already crossed. They have made a CGI movie. Will they fully cross over and become completely CGI? They were probably the last major holdout that was doing a more traditional look for all of their animated releases.

And I already hate it. I will admit, looking at the stills/trailer for Earwig and the Witch, I didn’t have high hopes for the film. It doesn’t look  great at all. The animation levels look like a small independent company doing their first film ever, that happens to be CGI. Not a pretty successful animation company trying CGI. They have money, they can make it look better.

But alas, I have been iffy on Studio Ghibli movies lately anyways. I have been having a hard time getting into their whimsy and mystery. Maybe this one will fix it?

Spoilers: It wont. Earwig (Taylor Henderson) was left on the porch of an orphanage as a baby, from a mysterious woman. They didn’t like that her name was Earwig, and apparently from a witch, so they figured they would hide that latter fact and also call her Erica Wig.

Ten years later, she is a bit of a terror in the orphanage. She does what she wants, she whines and complains, and she knows she wont be adopted ever, so she is biding her time. That is until a scary lady, Bella Yaga (Vanessa Marshall) and a tall scary guy, The Mandrake (Richard E. Grant) waltz in and totally pick her. But why?

Well, Bella Yaga is a witch, she could sense the witchy-ness in Earwig, and she needed an extra set of hands for potion making. Earwig thinks she will learn how to do magic and will totally help out! Turns out that Bella has absolutely no intention of making it pleasant for Earwig, or teaching her magic. Just someone to gather ingredients.

Ah, this new situation sucks. Who would have known that you can just adopt a kid to get a house worker?

Also featuring the voices of Kacey Musgraves, Logan Hannan, and Dan Stevens as a cat.

“Damn, that’s a huge witch.”There are quite a few problems with Earwig and the Witch. And honestly, the CGI is probably the least of its concerns. The CGI is still not great and notably average or below average throughout the movie, but it is not the biggest cause of concern.

Band plot – Worthless. Check out this poster graphic for the film. It is the most common form of advertisement I saw. It definitely does not represent this film. There is a brief band plot, involving history, the witch, mandrake, and Earwig’s mom. And it goes absolutely no where. It certainly doesn’t end up with them all being a band together with Earwig the lead vocals. This poster makes it look like a musical or band movie or anything, and it certainly is not. It teases some of these elements, and never does anything useful with them.

Earwig – She has no growth in this film. She is put into a trial to overcome and succeeds. The problem is, she started as a do whatever she wants child, and the movie ends the same, although definitely worse. No lessons learned. It is a terrible message. When she kept repeatedly calling the cat by her old friend’s name, I assumed it was some twist about the old friend being the cat. But no, they are two different entities. She is just a shitty kid who doesn’t care about the names of who she is talking to. They made a kids movie about a shitty kid.

The ending – By far, this is likely going to be the worst ending of a movie I have seen all year. I can easily imagine this movie making my worst list, and it is far too early to know where it land. But holy shit, this ending is such a waste.

SPOILERS ON THE ENDING. SPOILERS ON THE ENDING. Okay, here it is…It just ends! After some changes with magic occur, we get some weird time jumps, and it feels like the last hour of movie should have taken like 20-30 minutes max. It feels like the movie is about to start and do the main plot. And then with the a door opening and a mom arising, the movie is like, lololol credits. It makes absolutely no sense to have an ending there. It is like we got a prologue of an eventual story, but one I will never seek out, because of being dicked around in this film.

I hope this movie continues to get blasted, because it is truly really bad. And I hope Studio Ghibli doesn’t look at this and blame it on the CGI. Because sure, it is bad, and if it helps not make more like this, then that is swell. But fix the goddamn narrative structure, because this movie is absolutely a waste of anyone’s time who decides to watch it.

0 out of 4.

Psy. Cho. Gore. Man.

Psycho Goreman.

Really rolls off the tongue there, doesn’t it? It implies a lack of sanity, and a man who enjoyes producing gore. That is certainly not a good combination. And it is sometimes advertised as PG: Psycho Goreman. For most people, PG means parental guidance, and it is what most kid friendly movies are. There are G level, but those are super basic. I have to feel the branding and the acronym are intentional to combine these two thoughts together. They aren’t doing it to “trick” parents into taking their kids to see a violent R rated film, but given that this film plays with the tropes of “alien crashes to earth and is found by kids”, it just continues to play up that ridiculousness.

I mean, what if the alien was actually not a nice and docile creature? And what if humanity is worse?

In this picture: A sociopathic evil mastermind, a little boy, and a deadly alien

Mimi (Nita-Josee Hanna) and Luke (Owen Myre) are two siblings who often play their new came Crazy Ball with each other, but Mimi is much better at the sport than her brother. She is also meaner, like on a sociopath level. So because she won, she makes her brother dig a big hole in the background and eventually they find some glowing light alien stuff. They don’t do anything with it, go to sleep, and then the Arch-Duke of Nightmares (Matthew Ninaber, Steven Vlahos) is awoken and escapes his prison.

A ruthless killer alien, who has been trying to destroy the galaxy, has now been unleashed on the world and is ready to kill with blades, magic, and more. Fuck life, says this incarnation of evil. But Mimi ends up getting a hold of his special orb, which means he has to do what she says and cannot try to actively harm her. Ain’t nothing wrong with being in control of a villainous killer assassin. Also she renames him Psycho Goreman, because its better, PG for short.

Also there is an alliance of aliens who imprisoned him who now have to head to Earth to try and stop him from like, destroying everything too. Yep, that is a thing.

Also starring Adam Brooks, Alexis Kara Hancey, and Kristen MacCulloch.

Speak softly and carry on you the blood of your conquered foes.

Psycho Goreman is surprising, while at the same time not.

It hits a lot of the expected beats you would expect to see of “Alien comes to Earth, kids find him, but he is super evil.” Some of the chaos he does is pretty gorey, but wit the low budget they are still limited there. And honestly, the plot line of the Templar aliens rushing to stop him costume wise feels a lot like the enemies in power rangers. It could be intentional, but it still lowers the overall quality.

The surprising aspect comes from one of our leads, Mimi, as they did another reverse trope by making the strong determined sibling to be the girl, with the passive one being the boy. It was a great reversal. And I am shocked at hour menacing they made that girl. Absolutely one of the scariest anti-heroes of the year already, and someone I would not want to cross paths with ever in my own life. She did amazing and deserves praise there.

Overall the story is a bit amusing, but is dragged down sometimes from the lower budget and ways they had to work around it for the film. It didn’t shock me too much given the point of the plot, and most of the shock value came from unexpected stars.

2 out of 4.

Locked Down was one of the first hyped movies from the year, because it is one of the bigger straight to HBO Max things out there. I honestly don’t know if this one was ever intended to go to theaters first, but this one ended up just on the internet streaming world. And it is notable because it was made during quarantine stuff!

And uhhh, sure, a few things have been made that way now. But but but….how many were released already? Exactly. I also don’t know. This one probably isn’t the first at all. Like, remember that movie Host? That came out awhile ago. And I am sure random TV shows and other stuff have had episodes post quarantine released.

Wait, why is Locked Down special again?

WEAR YOUR FUCKING MASKS!

Paxton (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Linda (Anne Hathaway) are a couple of chumps living in London in 2020, sometime around April probably. Lockdowns are happening, only essential workers can leave to go to work, or leaving for essentials, and a whole lot of meetings are in zoom.

The problem is, these two are miserable together. They aren’t really a couple anymore. There were things that happened not soon before lockdowns began, leading them to for sure breakup once convenient to have a new place and all of that, and then…yeah, they are stuck together.

Well life sure does suck. But thanks to a series of lucky and strange breaks, both of their jobs put them in a position where they have to work together and have to ship off a very expensive diamond to some crummy dude. But what if they don’t? What if they just, like, take it and send the replica instead? They could sell the real one and live happily ever after, even apart if necessary, somewhere far away. Hooray lax security.

Also starring Dulé Hill, Jazmyn Simon, Ben Kingsley, Ben Stiller, Sam Spruell, Stephen Merchant, Mindy Kaling, and Marek Larwood.

Are they about to kiss at home? Okay, masks can be off.

Okay, quite a few things have been made during pandemic times now. Crews get completely tested, stay in bubbles, other crew member who can’t are masked up on set and social distancing, yadda yadda. But there is something unique in this one already, because it really captures that early April time frame of 2020 with the feel of it.

The world feels mostly empty, we have one of our main characters yelling poems to people on their balcony as a way of providing entertainment. There are masks and confusion of masks. There are zoom conference calls without the annoying jokes about people using zoom wrong (although would have been justified given when this one takes place, but man, those jokes are already played out). It went so well attention wise and then uhhh, I dunno, stopped at the end?

Like, during the heist, which did take place with workers at this giant department store place, and security, and people moving and packing up boxes, no one suddenly was wearing a mask? They had a big procedure of showing people coming in with masks, taking off the mask and then putting back on, but then at some point masks didn’t matter any more and I don’t know why. What the fuck happened to this continuity? Did they film that part before the actual lock downs? If so, the entire plot and reason they could attempt it doens’t make sense.

It really bugs me. And despite that strangeness, I still liked the movie. I like the build up to the heist, which is a huge portion, just not the actual heist, for more reasons than that as well. Just none of it seemed to really make a lot of sense then.

Also to talk about Ejiofor and Hathaway, oh my goodness they are wonderful together. That loath/love vibe is strong with those two, I bet they got into some real method acting before hand. Like, I don’t know what their relationship status is in real life, but I have to assume they actually lived and bugged the shit out of each other for awhile. They probably screwed and had arguments and watched sad movies. Their chemistry is off the charts and I am all for it right now.

Locked Down could have been better, was better than I expected, and I am now trying to headcanon a secret Hathaway/Ejiofor romance throughout the years.

3 out of 4.

Bloody Hell, mate. That is what British people some times say to their mates right? Bloody hell!

It is just a random exclamation like, “What the fuck?”, “Hot damn!”, or “Weasel balls!”

Maybe Australians say it too, I just know for Americans it is not the way we swear or exclaim.

Will this film take place in Great Britain or Australia? Or will it be a hellish landscape of blood. Only time can tell.

Analysis: After one picture I think this is porn.

Is Rex (Ben O’Toole) a hero or a criminal? Depends on who you ask.

Rex was at at a bank, trying to flirt with a worker, take her out on a date, when some dudes in masks showed up to rob the place, with guns. Things were going poorly, things were dangerous, so Rex took it on his own to just deal with the robbers himself. This surprisingly led him in jail for the way it all went down.

Years later, he is pissed off with the system, but he served his time and he is free to do what he wants. And he wants to leave the country. Go somewhere else, like Finland. But seemingly unrelated, some people capture him and have imprisoned him for…some reason. Damn Finnish people. he now has to use the same tact and guile that got him into prison for saving a bank, to figure himself out of this situation as well.

Also starring Meg Fraser, Caroline Craig, and Matthew Sunderland.

When Dart Maul is robbing banks you know times are tough for Disney.

Bloody Hell has a strange narrative structure and a pretty strange plot. The only thing that really connects the bank scene to the Finland plot involves the thinking of the main character and the level of violence he is able to dish out. But it is not the sort of thing that has to be a big focus for the Finland plot to happen. It does tell the story out of order, so it does keep some suspense in their relation.

And despite the fact that they don’t really matter together, this movie is still really fun.

I enjoyed the main character and his extra personality. Ben O’Toole was really charismatic with this role (eventually, the first bank scene of the movie was a little awkward). He seems like a fun guy, just a bit violent. His conversations with his inner voice is the main part of the film, and it comes across very well. The evil Finnish family isn’t too much special, but there is enough people to serve as fodder for unique kills and violent scenes.

Bloody Hell is not the strongest plot by means, but it keeps the action up for the most part, and doesn’t just feel wasted in its strange premise, like other recent movies that go with this genre. It is a movie that begs for creative death scenes and actually delivers, instead of being a let down like recent films like Ready or Not or The Hunt. Yeah, I will call out both of those films for sure.

3 out of 4.

Check out my interview with Martin Owen, the director, here!

What would you do if your son was at home, crying all alone on the bedroom floor because he’s hungry? And the the only way to feed him is to escape from a video game you got sucked into playing the part of one of the weaker side characters and really hoping you don’t die?

Alright, only some of that is relevant to Max Cloud. Max Cloud is a space hero. But he is also a video game character. And someone does get sucked into the video game. But don’t worry, no sons will be hungry tonight.

Ah yes, heroes, ready to fight, and to eliminate evil.

Sarah (Isabelle Allen) is just a teenage girl living at home with her dad in the 1980’s. She loves video games and he (Sam Hazeldine) doesn’t love her spending too much time on them. He constantly has to tell her to get off of them to do something else. Sarah would rather play the space game all day, and try to win. She wishes should could play it all day! Enter game based space witch (Jason Maza). And sure enough, Sarah gets whisked away into the game! But she doesn’t get to be Max Cloud (Scott Adkins). She has to play Jake (Elliot James Langridge), the cook, one of the few survivors at the start of the game, with no skill set.

Being placed in a game is cool, but how is she eventually going to get out? The space witch was like an Easter Egg and she has no idea how to activate it. And what if she dies in the game?!

Sarah has some help in the game, with other NPCs, and her best friend (Franz Drameh) in her room to navigate her character closer and closer to the end game. But what happens if they win? Would it just reset?

Too much afoot for Sarah to figure out. Just have to hope that Max Cloud is as good as his box says he is!

Also starring John Hannah, Lashana Lynch, and Tommy Flanagan.

You know you are a bad guy if you sit and laugh in the dark.

Max Cloud isn’t the first movie or book about being sucked into a video game and having to deal with the consequences, and it certainly won’t be the last. It is, however, a film that is incredibly uninspired and doesn’t offer much new into the “getting sucked into games” genre.

It takes place in the UK, and in the late 80’s, so maybe that is supposed to be enough of a reason to differentiate it? Not really. Most of Allen in this movie is just her voice, speaking through the TV to her her friend and dad. The scenes inside the game don’t feel like a game, just like a sci-fi broken ship. It was going for realism for the characters inside the game, but it also never felt really like a game at all, which is what I as a viewer would hope for. Outside of a few jokes or occasional reference, she could have also just been sucked into a campy sci-fi show and there wouldn’t be much difference.

The real world plot is simple, they are hoping to beat the game for her so that maybe she can escape. The plot of the Max Cloud video game is very bad though, and technically, most of the plot in the video game. If it was intentionally bad on purpose, for a campy reason, they should have made it more obvious, but it just drags the whole film down with it since it maintains a slightly serious tone for a comedy film.

I guess one of the biggest problems with the movie is it isn’t clear what it wants to be. It is a “Getting sucked into a game” movie that really would probably rather just be a straight sci-fi movie. It isn’t sure if it would rather be serious or a comedy, so it tries for both, giving the viewer not much of either. It had the potential to do more with its side characters and villains to make them interesting, but everything felt two-dimensional (heh). That could be the goal, if it was going for the bad video game vibe, but that goal can’t be achieved if the main real characters only talk about how awesome the game is. The bad video game plot just becomes bad movie plot, and the whole film suffers from it.

Max Cloud is messy, but not in a good way, and forgettable, in the worst way.

0 out of 4.

Despite loving the crap out of it, I never ended up reviewing Thunder Road for my website. In fact, I am re-watching it now to get an overall sense for it and how the director/writer/star has evolved.

Let’s back up. Jim Cummings created a movie called Thunder Road, and it was way better than I imagined an indie movie directed, written, and starring the same person could be. Especially if it is someone I hadn’t know at all. Cummings has dealt with a lot of shorts before this film, and has been a producer on various works, and apparently did a movie eight years prior, but this is the first one that likely anyone saw.

It was good, and we wanted more. Apparently the more we get was two years later, with The Wolf of Snow Hollow.

And cops? Is this another cop movie Jim?

John Marshall (Jim Cummings) is a cop. Yes you read that right. A cop. This time in a small resort town somewhere in Northern USA, that does good tourism during the ski season, and is quiet as heck when it ain’t. John is going to be the head Sheriff someday, he has been groomed for it, because his dad (Robert Forster) is the current sheriff, and about to retire. John is a bit more fiery, but he has the heart and spirit to get it done.

And then a woman dies. Not only does she die, but she dies horrifically, with her genitalia ripped out. Oh no. That is graphic. The boyfriend (Jimmy Tatro) reported hearing wolves during that time, and also noted that some local dudes in a bar got feisty towards them, but that is all he knows.

And the town things it was a werewolf. There are people who say they see a two legged wolf running around, and future deaths to more women seem to add more to the mythos. Some in his department believe it, but John does not, and he needs to put an end to this circus quick before the national news jumps on this and makes their town a laughing stock. He also wants to protect his daughter (Chloe East).

With his second in command (Riki Lindhome), John needs to prove that werewolves are not real despite overwhelming evidence, putting his own career and the lives of many on the line in the process.

Also starring Daniel Fenton Anderson, Skyler Bible, Demetrius Daniels, and Kevin Changaris.

Blood is hard to get out of various substances and snow is definitely one of them.

Thunder Road is about a cop having a nervous breakdown on life because he is losing everything he knows and loves: He has lost his mom to death, his wife to divorce, his daughter to divorce, and his job and friends due to his bad ways of dealing with his grief. One breakdown after another.

The Wolf of Snow Hallow is about a cop having a nervous breakdown because of the stresses of the job. He also happens to be a single parent, and close to losing a parent, and lashes out in anger at many things with his rage problems. So there are similarities, but sure, they are different, because the stress of being a cop really didn’t play into Thunder Road, while it clearly did in this movie.

I am weary of someone making roughly the same film over. Jim. Why are you playing a cop again? Do you love cops? Now is not an okay time to love cops. Which they do bring up in this movie too, so it is at least topical in that regard.

But in all honesty, The Wolf of Snow Hollow has a lot going on for it. It gets real stressful, we get long scenes of great dialogue, we get some good montages in this one, especially when it came to a crime happening and the cops investigating the same crime. Jim did grow as a visionary director here and had his movie try new things out.

The story itself is fine, it has twists and turns, but I wouldn’t say it was easy to guess or anything the conclusion towards. Sort of came out of nowhere for me, so I wonder how obvious it was or if I missed anything.

Also if Jim is a cop in the next movie he writes and directs I am going to be pretty sus with him, but still watch the shit out of it.

4 out of 4.

Most of you can likely assume by now in my 9th year of reviewing movies that I kind of love movies.

But I have other passions. I create art, I play games (less and less), I do twitch things, and I also play board games. I actually LOVE board games, but getting older, having young kids and a family, makes it harder to spend hours with others doing the board game thing. Really, I am just trying to make it through the awkward younger years for the kids, getting them older so I can just play the games with them. That is the dream goal.

Then retirement, play more games with strangers and shops and all of that. This assumes no pandemics in the future.

So board games are a passion of mine, so I was thrilled to be able to see a movie about board games. I am hoping it takes it to a high, or even medium leve with the topic. Just something more than standard Monopoloy and Sorry bull shit. Come on, Murder Bury Win. Wow me.

Okay if this game is like Fuck Marry Kill, I know who I’d pick for all three.

Adam (Erich Lane), Barrett (Henry Alexander Kelly), and Chris (Mikelen Walker) are best friends and work friends, because together they have made and designed their own board game called Murder Bury Win. They are ready to sell it and get rich and famous as game designers. [Yes, we know game designers aren’t really famous and more like “rich”]. They put their game on Gamechanger for funding (like Kickstarter), but after a month they got no where close their goal, except for a few anonymous donors. Fuck. Their dreams are ruined.

Well, the next day, Adam gets a call from a mysterious stranger. He wants to meet up with the creators of the game Murder Bury Win and talk about it, maybe invest, maybe help out. And this dude lives out in the middle of nowhere, in the woods, by himself. The don’t even know his name.

After a terse encounter and some talking, they discover it is actually V.V. Stubbs (Craig Cackowski), one of the most famous board game designers ever. These men made their game after they were inspired by Stubbs’ biggest hit, Murder Wall. Oh great, what luck. He will help them out and maybe even choose to buy it from them, that would be a wonderful start.

And then someone dies, accidentally. Maybe. This leaves the leftover people wondering how to get out of this mess. After the murder, they have to leave no trace and accurately bury, in order to win. Can they win?

Also starring Brian Slaten as a cop.

Everyone knows if you play the murder card you are allowed to murder. That’s the rules! 

Is Murder Bury Win a great game? Eh, not by my looks of it and the vague understanding of the rules. But that is acknowledged in the film as well that it needs work. So it is hard to judge this film on its board game love on that fact, but there are two elements that are really strong. One being the kickstarter-esque quality to the board game community. As far as I know, board games have been some of the most successful categories on Kickstarter, and Kickstarter has led to a huge boom in board game success. They’ve worked well together, so it was a nice element to include.

It also is clear that the writer or director really hates Exploding Kittens, and wanted to talk bad about it a few times, but they changed the title for this film. That is fair, but we still know what they meant, and I agree.

For the film itself, I really enjoyed the performances of Kelly and Walker the most. They felt the most believable, as they seemed like characters who knew the world wasn’t black and white, and had passions and dreams and actual struggles facing their decisions in the film.

The film has a decent amount of good moments, both in terms of conversation and visuals. But almost too many moments that don’t seem to work well either. For example, the cop scene has some good lines and moments, and also moments that don’t make a lot of sense given the situation. The scene went on for a long time, which is great as a purpose to make us uncomfortable, but it allowed these questionable parts to pop up more frequently, so it is hard to really get an overall great feeling out of it.

It has potential overall, just like the board game itself apparently had potential (but as a board game snob, ehhh the game looked like trash to me. Although meeples are always a plus). And it surprised me by going a bit darker than I imagined in some aspects, letting me fully call this a Dark Comedy and not just a comedy with some death in it.

2 out of 4.

Very nice! I will try to not fill this review with classic Borat quotes, I really will.

Since Da Ali G Show, Sacha Baron Cohen has been the best (and only?) person to consistently be some sort of master disguise artist. He goes full into each personality that it is hard to believe, and yet it allows others to open up and show case how much of a shit head they are. Hey, Cohen is only acting.

We saw it in Borat, which gave us poop, sex, and very strange humor, but also was just poking fun of racists and sexists in America.

He surprised us with the show Who Is America? which didn’t have enough episodes or go far enough, despite going really far and talking with a lot of politicians.

And now we are surprised with a Borat sequel, filmed mostly in secret the last two years, including during parts of the pandemic, with some aspects making national attention. How can this man do it all? Sacha Baron Cohen is noooooon-stop.

Gotta hide when everyone over 25 can quote your catch phrases.

Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen) thought he would be a successful star and hero of Kazakhstan, but it turns out even if the US of A loved him, he made a fool of his country. Their value went down, no more trades, people make fun of them, so they hate Borat now and he go to jail. He is not loved and sad.

But now, with new American Trump leader, the Premier of Kazakhstan is upset that Trump love all leaders nearby but not him, so he want Borat to redeem himself. He will send Borat to America to give a bribe of a fancy monkey to Michael Pence. Can’t go directly to Trump, because Borat pooped at his tower last visit, so VP will do.

Now Borat can go back to America! But everyone knows him in the US of A still, he very famous. He will have to make disguises instead. And it turns out his daughter (Irina Novak) snuck along as well, so he has to deal with a teenager who thinks she has rights and the ability to do things now that she made it to America.

Can he deliver the package to Michael Pence? Can he save Kazakhstan by getting them in the cool country club?

Is Sacha Baron Cohen everyone? Is he me? Is he cake?

Wow wow wee wow. I thought this film gave away a surprising amount of detail in the trailer (and honestly, still true), but what is more surprising is about how much of that takes place in the first half.

The Borat film slips seamlessly into sequel territory, it feels like no time at all has passed. It has the same exact style, the character sounds and acts the same, and it feels like there wasn’t a decade and a half in down time between it. Once it got going, and the hijinks started, I thought I was hanging out with an old friend, so they did a great job of transitioning.

There is a lot lot lot of plot in this film, potentially more than the first. The first film had the overall plot of being a journalist, wanting to marry Pamela Anderson, and all of the interactions along the way seemed like they could make sense for someone trying to discover American culture. Since a lot of this movie has a plot of “bonding” with his daughter, we are going to a lot more beauty stores, dress shops, clinics, women rights groups, etc. A lot of the points are slightly real, and a lot more staged, which I guess is necessary with two people in on the joke, whereas in Borat a lot more of it is him on his own (sometimes with his producer).

One great aspect of this film is that it was clearly being shot and had a purpose, and the Covid-19 Pandemic put a wrench into things. They had to change their plot, and do other things, because even they had to quarantine during that time, the film makers aren’t that danger seeking. It added a nice real element to it.

I am making sure I try to keep this completely devoid of spoilers, but also, the bigger moment near the end they are hoping to completely wreck someone I think won’t do much at all and be hand waved away, which is sad.

Overall, Cohen is a brilliant and insane person. He is a strange chameleon that goes to the extremes and makes people say and do racist stuff. It is a weird super power, but he seems to wield it for good mostly.

3 out of 4.

I have only been to a stand up comic show in the standard variety once. You know, a place that sells some sort of appetizers and drinks, with drink minimums. People all crammed in there to see one person, and they have to see other people before that who they likely don’t know, but are there to hype up the crowd so the main performer can absolutely slay.

Yeah. Just once. I have seen comedians in bigger auditoriums, and they have a different feel than the comedy clubs. I have seen them in more open mic settings which are very very different feels, because of the short set.

But that build up. It is very interesting. Are the people getting funnier as they come out, or is it just because you are getting happier over time, with more material time to work with, or even…drunker?

Either way, the formula works. And in The Opening Act, it takes a realistic look at the first guy in the line up, who has the least amount of time, who has little experience in dealing with hecklers. Can he succeed? Or will he wilt away like so many before him.

First thing you need to be able to do as a stand up comic? Stand up. Check!

Will O’Brien (Jimmy O. Yang) has grown up on stand up comedy. He lost his mom early on, but his dad was a big fan of stand up comics, so Will was a big fan of stand up comics. It was there way of bonding, it was their way of getting through grief.

Now Will is a man! An adult male man. He has a job that pays bills, a girlfriend who is supportive, and sometimes he gets to do stand up at open mic nights. But the only club he can get gigs at requires him to bring in paid customers to see him, and it is getting harder and harder for him to find people he knows who are willing to pay to watch him. He is at a point where his future in this career he wants to have is in question.

But then he gets an opportunity. To go out to another city and be the opening act (that’s the name of the movie!) and mc for real big time comedians! Multiple nights in a row to do his own material and get exposure and meet legends.

Can he do it? Can he break from his norm? Or will his dream go up in flames?

Also starring a wide variety of comics you might have heard of before! Like Cedric the Entertainer, Debby Ryan, Ken Jeong, Bill Burr, Neal Brennan, Alex Moffat, Russell Peters, Jermaine Fowler, and Simon Rhee.

Second thing you need to know? Where to find the good food in cities everywhere.I have seen movies about the hardships of being a stand up comic, you know, Funny People is sort of one of them. But they still are usually dealing with someone who has more success than failures. Sure there are pitfalls, but they usually exist further in the career and not at the humble beginnings.

In this movie, our lead is starting out as a regular insurance worker, who can sometimes tell some jokes. Getting to MC an event is a huge stepping stone for them. It isn’t hour long sets on Comedy Central, but that is far in the future. This is where many find out that they are not cut out and go back to their day job. It is PAINFUL at times to watch this film, but it feels so realistic that we accept it anyways.

A lot of the film seems to be based on personal anecdotes from the films director, Steve Byrne, who is not just trying to tell his story and humble beginnings, but the beginnings for most comics.

I have only seen Yang before in Silicon Valley, so I was definitely surprised with his voice (he goes very English as a Second Language in the show), and he carried himself well as a lead. It feels like it is also his story.

The movie has a wonderful cast of secondary characters, all of them have their own personality despite limited screen time, and again, just feel like real people. One of the biggest surprises was the girlfriend, because the whole film she is supportive and understanding and hopeful. There is no added in relationship drama to pile on to our main character, which is an all too common thing to do in film.

If you want the experience of standing up on a stage and being unable to function while people judge you, this film probably gives you one of the closest experiences you will get outside of VR.

3 out of 4.