Like telling 9-11 jokes on 9-12. DEATH TO 2020 – an uncomfortable mix of bad history and worse comedy. “Bad” not meaning it’s incorrect information, but that the information is not edifying or satisfying. Because we’ve all just died through it – lost our jobs, our lives, our loved ones. As crazy as this sounds to say, watching a documentary … Read More
The Number of the Beast. Dave Chappelle vents on the death of George Floyd and the re-fuel of a movement. June 6, 2020. An open-air venue, Wirrig Pavilion in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Can’t be more than a hundred people attending, temperature-checked as they enter, all masked; seating in twos on cheap wooden chairs, each pair isolated from the rest. Is … Read More
Stupid is as James Bond does. DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER is one of those movies where you can’t get over the stupid! This film makes us wonder whether author Ian Fleming ever plotted his novels so badly. We place half the blame on director Guy Hamilton, who brought us the turgid stupid of GOLDFINGER, and half the blame on screenwriter Richard … Read More
Black Wiseau. DOLEMITE IS MY NAME is a comeback film for Eddie Murphy? That’s a well-deserved question mark! As its filmmakers whine about being snubbed at the 2020 Oscars, they neglect to mention they’ve made a formulaic film about a conman with questionable product that deserves attention only as a novelty. As a historical figure, the flamboyant Rudy Ray Moore … Read More
Justice, Tween Dream Style. Can a demon really be scary if it has a name and speaks English? And sounds like Willem Dafoe? I mean, really, if a demon terrorized me with that voice that sounds like he’s biting a teacup in half, first thing I’d do is laugh. Then – maybe terrorized. I’ve always said, entities that you cannot … Read More
Breaking Bones. I was dreamin’ when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray But when I woke up this mornin’ could’ve sworn it was Judgment Day. The sky was all purple, there were people runnin’ everywhere Tryin’ to run from the destruction, you know I didn’t even care… — “1999,” Prince. Dave Chappelle calls the world a bunch … Read More
Terrifying Inadequacy. Three 20-somethings explore a decrepit house and die from ghosts. So it’s a happy ending. Because we started rooting for the ghosts about five minutes in. Blond valley girl Madison (Tara Holt), drags her non-actor boyfriend Jake (Bryce Johnson) and bestie Izzy (Katrina Law) to the cranky old house of her youth, which is scheduled for demolition. Madison’s … Read More
THE DIRT – is a load of CRAP! Maybe a quarter of it happened, and not like this… — Logan, LOGAN. THE DIRT opens with a title card: “This story is true.” Fuck off. In this paean to rock band Mötley Crüe (remember when umlauts made everything evil?), every detail, every anecdote, every song and character and drug-fueled escapade is … Read More
Fight For Your Right – to Dunkirk! He mobilized the English language, and sent it into battle. — Edward R. Murrow. (Accredited to Lord Halifax in DARKEST HOUR.) Oldman does Churchill! The greatest actor of our generation plays the greatest orator of the greatest generation. DARKEST HOUR follows newly-elected British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman) through Britain’s darkest hour … Read More
Destroy All Credibility! DESTROY ALL MONSTERS was planned as the last Godzilla film from Toho Company, which is why, we presume, legendary GOJIRA director Ishiro Honda, Just Doesn’t Give A Fuck anymore. After aliens called Kilaaks gain control of the monsters on Monster Island (translated as “Monster Land” in the English dub), forcing them to destroy Earth cities, Japanese scientists … Read More
Song for the Unsung. A high-pitched drone of violins imperceptibly morphs into the far-off air-scream of a diving German fighter plane. From the expanse of grey sky, a jot of shrill steel, growing into an engine roar, swelling into machine gun slaughter over a beach where 400,000 Allied soldiers huddle, stranded by circumstance, packed like lemmings, waiting for deliverance on … Read More
Double-thinking the clever-clever. …your 20s were all about hope, and your 30s is all about how dumb it was to hope… — Chris Gethard, DON’T THINK TWICE DON’T LOOK BACK is the story of six fast friends chasing the dream together in a New York improv comedy troupe called The Commune, giving their all to make it. And then – … Read More
The Face of Retirement. Charles Bronson once acted alongside Clint Eastwood in 1965, in an episode of Clint’s TV series RAWHIDE. Two young men at the dawn of their toughguy careers. Bronson has been chasing Eastwood ever since. Certainly not consciously, and I’m sure they’d be the last to cop to the unspoken rivalry, but it was there all right … Read More
Doctoral Architectural Procedural. If you like architectural special effects, DOCTOR STRANGE is the movie for YOU. Having purchased the building-bending app from INCEPTION, director Scott Derrickson plugs it in and goes on a two-hour coffee break while skyscrapers fold on top of one another, streets turn into Rubik’s cubes, and right angles become three-dimensional Escher-esque imbroglios. Then he emails the … Read More
Dave: Swoll.0 Bigger and badder than THE AGE OF SPIN, Dave Chappelle’s second stand-up show in this two-fer Netflix presentation, DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS, finds him more at ease and hitting more knockouts and home runs than in Part 1. (Or is this Part 1? I guess director Stan Latham felt that TEXAS had the more powerful vibe, … Read More
The Original Angster. Comedy icon Dave Chappelle returns to the standup arena after a decade, to prove he’s everything that the legends say he is. Is he? Like any icon who disappears from the scene (for any reason, up to and including death), Dave’s legend has outpaced his reality. So AGE OF SPIN seems like it starts slow – but … Read More
Art Imitating Life Imitating Irony. David Brent (Ricky Gervais), 15 years after leaving THE OFFICE, takes his self-financed band out on the road, for one last stab at “making it.” But, as one character laments, “he doesn’t really know what ‘it’ is.” DAVID BRENT: LIFE ON THE ROAD is a loving elegy for a much-loved character. But writer-director Gervais has … Read More
Grabbing Them By The Pussy. DEADPOOL is an electrodes-to-the-testicles, projectile-vomiting king slut of a film. And like every good slut, it’s got a filthy mouth, it’s bedecked in dungeon leather, and it takes it up the ass with a strap-on dildo. It is such a satisfying superhero movie because it has done what all mainstream superhero movies should have done … Read More
Ain’t Quite Despicable. And that’s not good. Is it?… Ex-supervillain Gru (voiced by Steve Carell), now a family man with three adopted daughters and a host of minions to provide for, is called into service by the Anti-Villain League to help track down a new supervillain. The original 2010 animated feature DESPICABLE ME hit the world like a cute and … Read More
Unfunny and unfunnier too. First of all, in this illiterate social media environment, I wonder how many people know this is the wrong form of the word “TO.”10%? Yeh, that’s about right. DUMB AND DUMBER TO catches up with our slightly retarded pals from DUMB AND DUMBER, Lloyd (Jim Carrey) and Harry (Jeff Daniels), 20 years later, as they embark … Read More