comedy

Sleepwalk With Me: engaging and successful comedy

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As Sleepwalk With Me begins, the filmmaker lets the audience figure out three basic things about the main character.  First, he has the perfect girlfriend and, no matter what happens in his life, he will never do any better.  Second, despite her patience after being together eight years, it’s time for him to marry her or not.  Third, he is absolutely unready to make that commitment.

That filmmaker is co-writer/co-director Mike Birbiglia, a standup comic whose screenplay is based on his autobiographical one man show.  His protagonist’s unpromising career as a comedian is feeding his ambivalence to marry a woman whose career has already stabilized.  As he feels more and more relationship and career pressures, he develops REM Behavior Disorder – a rare and particularly dangerous form of sleepwalking.

The sleepwalking, of course, sets up some funny moments, as do the stumbling start to the standup career, the girlfriend angst and the usual maddening set of parents.  In a comic triumph, Birbiglia gently and intelligently milks the laughs out of each situation while never losing focus on the fundamental truth of each situation.

The girlfriend is beautiful, good-hearted, smart, sexy and full of life.  She is played impeccably by Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under. Starting Out in the Evening).  Veterans James Rebhorn and Carole Kane are excellent as the protagonist’s bickering parents.  Here’s a nice touch:  the pioneer scientist of sleep disorder science himself, Stanford professor Dr. William C. Dement, provides a funny cameo.

Robot & Frank: funny and revealing as a man ages

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Frank Langella’s performance in Robot & Frank elevates the film from a pretty good comedy to a revealing study of getting older.  Langella’s character Frank lives an isolated retirement in upstate New York, and he is experiencing some symptoms consistent with the early onset of dementia.  Naturally, his adult kids are worried.  The story takes place in the near future, so his son helpfully provides Frank with robotic personal healthcare assistant.  Frank resists, and this is where, in lesser hands,  Robot & Frank could have become just another comedy about a crusty old curmudgeon.

But the focus of Robot & Frank is deeper than that – it’s about an older person’s strategy to accept, resist, deny or adapt to the various ravages of becoming older.  As the robot institutes a daily routine with improved diet and exercise, Frank becomes less addled.  With his new-found lucidity, he can now try to resist aging by making some new goals.  It turns out that Frank’s career was as a cat burglar  – and he would prefer to be only semi-retired – so….

It’s an enlightening exploration, which becomes more profound when a fact is revealed very late in the film.

The supporting cast, including the always appealing Susan Sarandon, is very good. The sardonically detached Peter Sarsgaard was the perfect choice to voice the robot.  Jeremy Strong is very good as a particularly despicable yuppie.

The trailer makes Robot & Frank appear lighter than it is.  It is a funny movie, but also has some heft.

Celeste and Jesse Forever: another actress-written, smart, funny movie

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I really enjoyed Celeste and Jesse Forever, starring Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg as best friends who have been married, are now working on an amiable divorce and are still best friends.  The screenplay is co-written by Rashida Jones (Paul Rudd’s fiance in I Love You, Man) and, once you accept the comic premise that this couple is made for each other but not as a married couple, everyone’s behavior is authentic.  Sure, he wants to get back with her when she isn’t in a place to do that – and, then, vice versa – but the characters resolve the conflict as they would in real life.  Here’s a mini-spoiler – this movie is just too smart to end in rushing to the airport or disrupting the wedding or any of the other typical rom com contrivances.

The supporting characters are funny without being absurdly zany (except for one pot dealer).   Chris Messina pops up in Celeste, as he did in Ruby Sparks, and does a good job here, too.

I’m certainly looking forward to Rashida Jones’ next screenplay.

2 Days in New York: a diversion, sometimes funny

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Writer-director Julie Delpy and Chris Rock play a couple living together in a cramped New York City apartment with their kids from previous relationships when her eccentric French family comes for a visit.  Most French are reserved and impeccably polite; because that’s not funny, Delpy wrote her visitors to be very badly behaved extreme hedonists.  The stress of the first visit by the in-laws, the claustrophobia of packing people into a tiny apartment and language and cultural barriers are all promising comic situations.   A mid-range comedy, 2 Days in New York has its moments.

As a screenwriter, Delpy’s strengths are a keen eye for family dysfunction, brisk pacing and a willingness to get raunchy.  But much of the broadest gags in 2 Days in New York fall flat.  There is a funny bit about Delpy’s emotionally brittle artist literally selling her soul as a piece of performance art.  And it’s funny when Delpy invents a preposterous tragedy to avoid facing a complaint from a neighbor.  But the funniest moments are two Chris Rock monologues when he retreats to his man cave to converse with a large poster of Barack Obama.

I wouldn’t recommend a special trip to the theater to see 2 Days in New York, but it’s a pleasant enough diversion to watch on DVD or stream later this year.

Killer Joe: OMG

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Here’s a movie that will either thrill or disgust you. Either way, you sure ain’t gonna be bored.

In Killer Joe, Thomas Haden Church, Gina Gershon and Emile Hirsch play a white trash family with a get rich quick scheme.  They give a hit man (Matthew McConaughey) the teen daughter (Juno Temple) as a deposit.  They’re all as dumb as a bag of hammers, so what could go wrong?

Killer Joe was directed by William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist) and shot by cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (The Right Stuff, The Natural) in just 20 days.  These guys know how to tell a story, and Killer Joe pops and crackles.

Killer Joe is rated NC-17 for good reason and Friedkin accepts the rating without complaint.  Indeed, Killer Joe has its share of Sam Peckinpah style screen violence and an unsettling deflowering scene.  But the piece de resistance is an over-the-top sadistic encounter between McConaughey and Gershon involving a chicken drumstick,  at once disturbing and darkly hilarious.   But Sam Fuller and Quentin Tarantino would have loved it, and so did I.  Nevertheless, some viewers will feel like they need a shower after this movie.

The cast does a good job, but the picture really belongs to McConaughey and Temple.  McConaughey is currently recalibrating his career a la Alec Baldwin – he’s moving from playing pretty boys in the rom coms to taking meatier, more interesting roles.  He is both funny and menacing as Killer Joe (and I liked him in Bernie and Magic Mike, too).  I’m really looking forward to seeing him in Mud and The Paperboy.

The movie slowly makes Juno Temple’s character more and more central, until she takes command of the denouement.  Temple is always sexy (Kaboom and Dirty Girl), and here she is able to ratchet down her intelligence to play a very simple character, always exploited by others, who is finally empowered to take control.

I saw Killer Joe at a screening where Friedkin said that the screenwriter saw Juno Temple’s character as the receptacle for all feminine rage.  Friedkin himself sees it as a Cinderella story – just one where Cinderella’s Prince Charming is a professional killer.  hat’s all pretty deep sledding to me – I see Killer Joe as a very dark and violent comedy – kinda like In Bruges with twisted sex.

Dark Horse: an epic underachiever, unattractive but human

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Dark Horse:  In this engaging indie dramedy by writer-director Todd Solondz (Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness), an epic underachiever falls in love with a heavily medicated depressive.

This guy has not moved out from his boyhood room in his parent’s house.   He gets a paycheck from his dad’s company although the office assistant does his work while he spends his day bidding for collectible toys on eBay.  He drives a bright yellow Hummer that blares the sappiest pop music.  Yet he feels completely entitled, is surly to his enabling parents and bellows like a wounded water buffalo when his genius remains unrecognized.

This guy is remarkably unsympathetic.  Still, Solondz ‘s clear-eyed and unsparing portrait is not mean-spirited and, eventually, becomes even empathetic. In particular, Solondz makes able use of dream/fantasy segments to explore the yearnings of the characters.

Jordan Gelber is excellent as the hapless blowhard protagonist.  The cast (Selma Blair as the girlfriend, Christopher Walken and Mia Farrow as the parents) is quite good, too, especially Donna Murphy as the office assistant and Aasif Mandvi as the girlfriend’s ex.

I saw this at a screening with Todd Solondz, and he said that Dark Horse is a reaction to the Apatowesque man-child movies.  In those films, the underachieving slackers are endearing goofs.  Here, the underachieving slacker is realistically unattractive, but has a realistic vulnerability and fundamental humanity.  Solondz says that the protagonist, at last, finds life in death.

Dark Horse has the trademark Solondz quirkiness, but without the trademark perversion.  As with most Solondz films, I’m still thinking about it several days later.

Note:  In Dark Horse, Walken and Farrow appear to be watching Seinfeld.  Instead of paying the fee to license a snippet of the real Seinfeld, Solondz got Jason Alexander, Estelle Harris and Jerry Stiller to read Solondz-written faux Seinfeld dialogue.

Magic Mike: male strippers, no magic

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MAGIC MIKE

Magic Mike is about watching male strippers, period.  There are a couple lame plot threads, but it’s about the stripping.  The star, Channing Tatum, is winning and impressively athletic.  Matthew McConaughey helps re-brand his career with a funny performance as a sleazeball strip club owner – and shows off his body, too.

Director Steven Soderbergh is known for his prestige pictures but still relishes making B movies.  Good for him – he brought something special to the B picture Haywire last year (which co-starred Tatum).  But there’s no magic in Magic Mike.  And, at 110 minutes, it’s too long.

DVD of the Week: Goon (no, really)

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Doug Glatt is not very smart and he knows it. He struggles to find the right word in every situation. Because his only talent is the ability to knock others unconscious, he is only in demand as a bar bouncer. But Doug is not a brute – he is goodhearted and loyal, and yearns to be part of something. By chance, Doug gets hired by a minor league hockey team to become its thuggish enforcer – despite his inability to ice skate.

We get lots of funny hockey violence a la the Hanson Brothers in Slap Shot. It’s very funny when Doug mangles his every attempt at cogent conversation. The comedy also comes from Doug’s innocent fish out of water in the cynical, sleazy and cutthroat world of minor league hockey. (He’s even reverential about the team logo on the locker room floor.)

There are lots of nice comic touches. For example, when Doug becomes a sensation, one of his fans in the stands holds up a sign reading “Doug 3:69” (Doug wears jersey number 69); we glimpse the sign for only a second, but I appreciate the filmmakers planting such nuggets in the movie. Doug is also that rarity – a Jewish hockey goon, with parents horrified that he isn’t following his brother to med school.

Although plenty raunchy, Goon is a rung above the normal gross-out guy comedy because Doug is such a fundamentally good and well-meaning person. As Doug, Seann William Scott (Stifler in American Pie) plays a naive simpleton, but one fiercely committed to his core values. It’s got to be hard to play that combination, and Scott’s performance is special.

The cast is excellent. Co-writer Jay Baruchel plays Doug’s sophomoric friend. Alison Pill (Milk, Midnight in Paris) is the troubled smart girl who can’t figure out why she’s attracted to a word-fumbling hockey goon. Liev Schreiber, excellent as always, dons a Fu Manchu and a mullet to play the league’s toughest goon. Kim Coates, who almost stole A Little Help as the personal injury attorney, plays the coach.

Goon has earned the #21 spot on Wikipedia’s “Films that most frequently use the word “f**k” with its 231 f-bombs.

Turn Me On, Dammit!: wise, sympathetic and funny

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Alma is pushing 16 and lives in rural Norway, in a tiny community so remote that her mom works in a turnip factory.  Her hormones have been unleashed, and she can think of nothing but sex.  She spends her free time having poignantly innocent (and incomplete) sexual fantasies, masturbating and running up phone sex bills.  Her schoolmates misinterpret her encounter with a boy and ostracize her as the village slut.  So begins this wise, sympathetic and funny Norwegian coming of age comedy.

The humor comes from the film’s knowing view of human nature and, especially, of teenagers.  One of Alma’s pals aspires to move to Texas and end capital punishment by raising awareness.  For another, no amount of lip gloss can be enough.  None of them can figure out how to pilot their budding urges without embarrassing awkwardness.  And all the while, Alma’s beleaguered mom tries to figure out what to do with her.

The laughs are mostly chuckles instead of guffaws.  Turn Me On, Dammit! is only 76 minutes of long, which is just the right length for this story.  It’s a good-hearted and funny movie.

 

To Rome with Love: amusing minor Woody

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The title says it all – To Rome with Love is Woody Allen’s affectionate missive to Rome, more amusing than the average greeting card but no more substantial.  It’s not great Woody, nor is it bad Woody.  But minor Woody (like To Rome with Love) is still funny and smart, even wise sometimes.

Allen cuts between four unrelated and more or less simultaneous stories.  In the first, a comedy of manners, Woody and Judy Davis play an American couple in Rome to meet their daughter’s (Alison Pil) Roman beau and his family.  There’s a culture clash and the impulses of Woody’s character create comic havoc.

In the second (and best) tale, Alec Baldwin plays a man in his fifties who is recalling the Roman adventure of his twenties, this time imparting his life wisdom to his younger self (Jesse Eisenberg).  What mature man wouldn’t want to relive his single days knowing what he now knows about women? In this case, Eisenberg’s girlfriend introduces him to her alluring but surely unreliable gal pal, played by Ellen Page.  Baldwin’s sage is warning him off, but the younger man can’t help but become entranced with a woman who strews relationship carnage behind her.  When Eisenberg thinks that he is seducing Page, Baldwin cynically points out that Page has just popped a Tic-Tac to be ready for a kiss.  When Woody has him “melt” Page’s actress with a line about her being deep enough to play Strindberg’s Miss Julie, we recall that the real Woody has dated the likes of Louise Lasser, Diane Keaton, Stacy Nelkin and Mia Farrow.  It’s good stuff.

The third story, and least successful, is a farce in which a young Italian bridegroom must impress his uptight relations despite some contrived mistaken identity.

The fourth story is an allegory on today’s culture of silly and unearned celebrity.  Roberto Benigni is perfect as an ordinary Giuseppe plucked out of his hum drum routine and made an instant celebrity.  No comic can play befuddlement or nouveau entitlement like Benigni.

To Rome With Love stars the usual splendiferous Woody cast.  Judy Davis, Penelope Cruz, Alison Pil, Alec Baldwin and a host of Italian actors are all just fine, but don’t have to stretch; (this also applies to 2012’s annoyingly ever-present Greta Gerwig).  But Woody himself is outstanding, as are Ellen Page, Jesse Eisenberg and Roberto Benigni.