comedy – Page 35 – PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – Friday

Friday (1995)
Written by Ice Cube & DJ Pooh
Directed by F. Gary Gray

I haven’t laughed watching a comedy film like this in a very long time. This was a couldn’t stop, tears in my eyes, perpetual motion machine of laughing. Friday was an independent picture made by people that were figuring out how to be filmmakers and showing some of the best promise of any debut I’ve ever witnessed. Yes, there are weak points, and not all the jokes hit, but this is an instance where gags are being thrown at the screen every second. When ones do hit, they connect hard, and you’ll find yourself uncontrollably losing it.

Movie Review – Bad Boys

Bad Boys (1995)
Written by Michael Barrie, Jim Mulholland, and Doug Richardson
Directed by Michael Bay

At this point in my life, I have seen five Michael Bay films, and I can confidently say that I hate him and his stupid movies. The only way to enjoy a Bay picture is to literally become braindead and not process films beyond the surface level. He’s like is a pile of cocaine that became sentient, frenzied & overconfident but ultimately lacking in any substance. I get why a picture like this one might have wowed audiences. In 1995, this style of filmmaking was brand new. He was taking a genre that wore out its welcome in the 1980s, the buddy cop movie, and injecting it with a more contemporary vibe. You have two Black lead actors as the heroes which wasn’t happening in big-budget film then. There is so much here that feels fresh, but when you go beyond that immediate feeling, you find a picture mired in old-fashioned misogyny and unfunny attempts at jokes.

Movie Review – Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight

Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995)
Written by Mark Bishop, Ethan Reiff, and Cyrus Voris
Directed by Ernest Dickerson

I never saw the HBO version of Tales From the Crypt. Instead, I caught the edited reruns on Fox that used to air late at night on Saturdays. I absolutely loved the show, and it was probably one of the first things that stoked my interest in horror short stories. Interestingly, Demon Knight isn’t a story adapted from the pages of the titular EC Comics publication like the episodes of the show were. Instead, this was a script initially developed in the late 1980s and shopped around before it was set to be the second in a trilogy of Tales From the Crypt movies. The other two were dropped, and we ended up with Demon Knight as the first theatrical production to bare the HBO franchise’s label.

Short Film Showcase 2020 #3

Rachel (Directed by Andrew DeYoung)
I love the comedic duo of John Early & Kate Berlant. Their Vimeo exclusive series 555 is brilliant, and everyone should watch it. This short film, directed by Andrew DeYoung, who was also behind the show, dramatizes a real-life situation that occurred to Early and his friends at a small house party one night. I don’t want to give away the details, but the short is a beautiful blend of horror, comedy, and that nervous, anxious cringey feeling—one of my favorite shorts of all-time, so simple yet brilliant.

Movie Review – The Americanization of Emily

The Americanization of Emily (1964)
Written by Paddy Chayefsky
Directed by Arthur Hiller

You didn’t see a lot of films in the wake of World War II that called military action into question. You would see a slew of anti-war films twenty-odd years out from Vietnam. But on the twentieth anniversary of D-Day, it was a pretty bold move to put out a movie about the lead up to that event, which questioned the leadership of the U.S. military and spoke to how soldiers’ bodies are so often used as props for state-sanctioned propaganda. This material had to be couched inside a romantic comedy-drama, and the subversiveness is hidden deeper in the narrative after we’ve been given a seemingly light set-up.

TV Review – Succession Season Two

Succession Season 2 (HBO)
Written by Jesse Armstrong, Jon Brown, Tony Roche, Georgia Prichett, Will Tracy, Susan Soon He Stanton, Jonathan Glatzer, and Mary Laws
Directed by Mark Mylod, Andrij Parekh, Shari Spring Berman & Robert Pulcini, Matt Shakman, Becky Martin, and Kevin Bray

Season two of Succession starts with a feeling numbing cold. Kendall Roy (Jeremy Armstrong) is at a European spa when he’s summoned by his father, Logan (Brian Cox), to make a statement on the strength of his dad’s position in a pending buyout. Kendall complies, broken from what transpired in the final moments of season one and now forever kneeling before his father, who bailed him out. That is the arc of this character throughout these ten episodes, exploring if he can ever have his own voice or will forever bend the knee and allow his privilege to protect him. Some viewers may see Kendall as the one “good guy” in the Roy family, but Kendall is not. He actively participates in the cruel and criminal acts; his family perpetuates, and he benefits from the outcomes.

Movie Review – Come to Daddy

Come To Daddy (2019)
Written by Toby Harvard
Directed by Ant Timpson

If you have seen the trailers for Come to Daddy, you have been tricked, in an excellent way. By the end of the first act, the film throws a twist at the audience that causes all your expectations to go out the window. I was left entirely out to sea, wondering where this story was going when such a vital element of the story changed so drastically. Come to Daddy isn’t some revelation of a dark comedy, but it is a very entertaining and bizarre narrative. The characters are absurd, funny, and horrific. I found myself laughing quite a bit at a film I didn’t expect would amaze me too much.

Movie Review – Brazil

Brazil (1985)
Written by Terry Gilliam, Tom Stoppard, and Charles McKeown
Directed by Terry Gilliam

Brazil has often been explained as George Orwell’s 1984 played as a comedy, and that is not too far off. I don’t think the art deco world of the film is as authoritarian as 1984, but the flow of disinformation is just as crucial to the narrative. Brazil presents a prophecy of the world we live in now where the specter of faceless terrorism is used to cow people into apathy. The power is not sleek and sharp but buffoonish, making fatal errors and killing innocent people. But the stratified class system and a fear of being targeted if you speak up keeps the ordinary person docile.

TV Review – Jeeves & Wooster Season One

Jeeves & Wooster (ITV)
Season One, Original airdates: April 22 – May 13, 1990
Written by P.G. Wodehouse and Clive Exton
Directed by Robert Young

Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie were a very well-known comedy duo in the U.K. coming out of the late 1980s. They had a top-rated skit comedy series, A Bit of Fry & Laurie, while making appearances in Rowan Atkinson’s Black Adder show. When it came time to cast the iconic English valet and his buffoonish employer Fry & Laurie were hesitant to step into such significant roles. When it became apparent the show was going to be made whether they were in it or not, they took the parts believing they could do the original text justice.

Movie Review – The Sure Thing

The Sure Thing (1985)
Written by Steven Bloom and Jonathan Roberts
Directed by Rob Reiner

Rob Reiner had just come off of his debut film, the hilarious This Is Spinal Tap. His next project was The Sure Thing, a teen sex comedy, seemingly very different from that first feature. Reiner decided to make it the kind of movie he was interested in and played down the bawdy elements to focus on the dynamics of the two lead characters. As a result, he made what could be considered a modern remake of the classic screwball comedy It Happened One Night, following a similar plot structure and back and forth between the leads. The Sure Thing stands out from the crowd at the time, other films more influenced by Porky’s or John Hughes’ high school work. The Sure Thing feels like a classic movie, a connecting thread to the films of the 1930s and 40s.