Category: comedy

TV Review – The League of Gentlemen Series 1

The League of Gentlemen Series 1
Written by Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith & Jeremy Dyson
Directed by Steve Bendelack

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The fictional Northern England village of Royston Vasey is not a place you would want to spend much time in. This does not bode well in the opening scene for young Benjamin Denton who has come by train to visit his Uncle Harvey and Aunt Val. But he is just one character (the majority played by Gatiss, Pemberton, and Shearsmith) that make up this mosaic of depravity and dark humor. There is Mr. Chinnery, the veterinarian with a long accidental kill streak, Pauline the brutal jobs trainer for citizens on the government dole, and the trio of Brian, Geoff, and Mike, lads who were friends since school but have risen to very different levels of success. The worst though is high on the hills outside of town, operating a local shop for local people: Edward and Tubbs, a terrifying duo of inbred killers. Did I mention this show is a comedy?

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Movie Review – Lady Bird

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Lady Bird (2017)
Written & Directed by Greta Gerwig

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Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson is a high school senior living with wanderlust in the suburbs of Sacramento circa 2002. She has a strained relationship with her mother, Marion who is forced to play the bad guy while her father, Larry deals with issues of employment and finances in the background. Lady Bird is an incredibly strong personality with ambitions of attending one of the mid-tier Ivy League schools of the East Coast. She’s pointed in the direction of the theater when seeking out extracurriculars to add to her C.V. It’s doing theater that pushes her into her first complicated romantic relationship.

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Movie Review – The Disaster Artist

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The Disaster Artist (2017)
Written by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber
Directed by James Franco

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Struggling actor Greg Sestero has a problem bringing out emotion in his performances. Then one night he witnesses Tommy Wiseau, a quiet man in his acting class delivers an embarrassingly over the top monologue from A Streetcar Named Desire. Greg and Tommy strike up a friendship that brings them to Los Angeles to pursue their dreams. Tommy becomes jealous as Greg gets a girlfriend, an agent, and acting parts while he struggles. This pushes Tommy to write the script for The Room which, against all the odds and logic, he produces and goes on to become a modern cult classic.

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Movie Review – I Love You, Daddy

I Love You, Daddy (2017)
Written & Directed by Louis C.K.

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Glen is a television producer/writer/showrunner with a 17-year-old daughter, China that has him wrapped around her finger. She’s come to enjoy the very privileged lifestyle he can provide her and seems somewhat aimless when it comes to her direction in life. Glen strikes up the chance to cast a famous Hollywood actress in his show and while attending one of her parties China meets Leslie Goodwin. Goodwin is an arthouse writer-director in his late 60s surrounded by rumors of a proclivity for underage women. China is at first repulsed but, much to Glen’s horror becomes increasingly enthralled with the worldly older man. Glen has to decide what is more important: the love of his daughter or her well-being.

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TV Review – Search Party Season 2

Search Party Season 2 (TBS)
Written by Sarah-Violet Bliss & Charles Rogers, Jordan Firstman, Starlee Kine, Anthony King, Christina Lee, Andrew Fleming, and Matt Kriete.
Directed by Sarah-Violet Bliss & Charles Rogers, Lilly Burns, and Michael Showalter.

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The first season of Search Party ends with the central mystery solved but a much more significant problem on the hands of the four main characters: they murdered someone. The second season picks up right where the first let off and becomes an entirely new animal. Dory is wracked with guilt, knowing that her actions led to this murder. Her ex-boyfriend Drew continues to distance himself from her and is now joined by their friends Elliott and Portia. Each of them is dealing with their part in the murder and cover-up in very different ways, yet all destructive and sloppy in some manner. Whereas the first season was a mix of comedy and mystery, this round is still funny but much more psychological and darker in where it goes.

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Movie Review – Klovn Forever

Klovn Forever (2015)
Written by Casper Christensen, Frank Hvam, & Mikkel Nørgaard
Directed by Mikkel Nørgaard

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Frank and Casper are Danish comedy writing partners that have reached a turning point in their lives. On the eve of the publication of a memoir about their longstanding friendship, Casper is heading to Los Angeles to develop his career further while Frank is reluctantly settling into domesticity with a second child newly born. After reading through the final draft of the memoir, Frank realizes he just can’t let Casper go and strikes out to the United States to convince him to come back. However, a series of shocking and hilarious missteps.

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Movie Review – Pottersville

Pottersville (2017)
Written by Daniel Meyer
Directed by Seth Henrikson

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Maynard runs one of the few stores that’s not been boarded up in downtown Pottersville, a small upstate New York town. One day he decides to get off work early and surprise his wife only to find her caught in a compromising situation with a fellow member of the Furry club. Despondent, Maynard drowns his sorrows in moonshine, eventually donning a gorilla costume and running around the town. As he recovers from his hangover the following morning, the man discovers he was mistaken for a Bigfoot, and now the news is spreading across the globe. A pompous television monster hunter shows up ready to exploit this mystery, and the people of Pottersville are eager to cash in on the newfound fame. But Maynard knows the truth will eventually come out.

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Movie Review – Ingrid Goes West

Ingrid Goes West (2017)
Written by David Branson Smith & Matt Spicer
Directed by Matt Spicer

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Ingrid Thorburn is a mentally unstable woman who seems to have little human contact outside of online social media, notably Instagram. She is released from a mental health facility and returns to her recently deceased mother’s home, still in grief about that loss and deep into her ongoing psychological issues. That is when she comes across an article on Taylor Sloane, a new social media tastemaker. Taylor fills her Instagram with accounts of the food she eats, the clothes she wears, and the activities she and her husband get up to living in Venice Beach. Ingrid decides that Venice Beach is where she needs to be and cashes out her inheritance to go there with the chance of running across Taylor. Eventually, this chance meeting occurs and Ingrid’s problems only compound from there.

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Movie Review – The Book of Henry

The Book of Henry (2017)
Written by Gregg Hurwitz
Directed by Colin Trevorrow

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Henry Carpenter is an 11-year-old boy living in the Hudson Valley who is practically perfect in every way. He wows his schoolteacher, his mom, and pretty much everyone he comes across. He has taken over managing the family’s money while his mother works part-time as a waitress and writes/illustrates children’s books. But Henry has also discovered a terrible secret about the girl next door. She is in an abusive situation, and Henry feels as if he is the only person who can do something about this. So Henry begins to devise a plan.

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Movie Review – Logan Lucky

Logan Lucky (2017)
Written by Rebecca Blunt
Directed by Steven Soderbergh

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Jimmy Logan is the latest in a long family history of bad luck West Virginians. He’s just been fired from his job working as part of the crew patching sinkholes under the Charlotte Motor Speedway and finds out his ex is moving out of state with their daughter. Jimmy can’t afford a lawyer to get partial custody, so he devises a plan. With the help of his brother, sister, incarcerated explosives expert Joe Bang, and a few others Jimmy is going to steal millions right out from underneath the Speedway, that is if the Logan family curse doesn’t get in the way first.

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