comedy

HELMET HEADS: engaging characters can take a light comedy a long way.

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HELMET HEADS

Engaging characters can take a light comedy a long way.  (And light comedy can take social commentary a long way, too.)  That’s the case with Neto Villalobos’ amiable comedy Helmet Heads (Cascos Nomados).

Mancha (Arturo Parda) buzzes around San Jose, Costa Rica, as a motorcycle delivery driver and canoodles with his girlfriend Clara (Daniela Mora). Mancha hangs out with his buddies from work. Clara tends a pack of 700 wild dogs on a mountainside outside the city. There’s a job crisis at Mancha’s employer, and Clara is moving to another town – so Mancha faces some choices.

The core of Helmet Heads is the bro-buddy camaraderie of the drivers. They all know each other by nicknames (and not their real names). “Mancha” means “Stain” and refers to the protagonist’s prominent facial birthmark. I especially loved the ever-blissed out Chito, the bombastic Gordo and the conveniently/inconveniently diabetic Gato. I was surprised to learn that most of the cast are non-actors and some are motorcycle delivery drivers.

Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose. These guys, especially Mancha, value their independence, but Helmet Heads reminds us – usually slyly – that their place in Costa Rica’s society is insecure, even fragile. Even with the social comment, Helmet Heads is pretty funny throughout.

There is also a sex scene unlike any I’ve seen. The sex is conventional, but the setting is not.

[Oddly, I flashed on another motorcycle messenger movie, the 1981 French thriller Diva, even though that is an entirely dissimilar movie – sleeker production values, a Hitchcock homage, an iconic chase through the Paris Metro, etc.]

I saw Helmet Heads at Cinema Club Silicon Valley, with a post screening Q&A with director Neto Villalobos.. I’ll let you know when and if Helmet Heads can be streamed.

BOOKSMART: fresh, smart and funny

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Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever in BOOKSMART Credit: Francois Duhamel / Annapurna Pictures

In Olivia Wilde,’s wildly successful comedy Booksmart, Molly (Beanie Feldstein) and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) play super-achieving kids who have followed every rule and refused to be distracted by high school frivolity; appalled to learn that their more conventionally fun-loving classmates have also gotten admitted to elite colleges, Molly and Amy decide to consume four years of teen fun in one night of graduation parties. This is an entirely fresh take on the coming of age film, and a high school graduation party romp like you’ve never seen.

Booksmart is the directorial debut of actress Olivia Wilde, and was written by Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel and Katie Silberman. The impact of the all-female creative team, to my eyes, is not in any particular scene or character, but woven throughout. These women have gotten the rare chance to make a movie, brought their talent and fresh eyes to it and knocked it out of the park.

Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever in BOOKSMART

Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein are special talents. Dever played one of the most compelling characters in TV’s Justified as Loretta McCready and was excellent in the Lynne Shelton drama Outside In. Feldstein sparkled as the protagonist’s high school best friend in Lady Bird. Here’s a particularly fun NYT interview with Dever and Feldstein.

Others in the relatively underseen cast – especially Diana Silvers, Molly Gordon, Billie Lourd, Austin Crute, Noah Galvin and the skateboarder Victoria Ruesga – bring interesting presences to the film. One wonders if Booksmart will become an American Graffiti/Animal House/Fast Times at Ridgemont High/The Breakfast Club phenomenon, and launch a cohort of movie careers.

Booksmart is smart, funny and a very fulfilling start to 2019’s slate of summer movies.

LONG SHOT: to be remembered as minor Theron

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Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron in LONG SHOT

The romantic comedy Long Shot looked eminently skipable to me until I read Manohla Dargis’ NY Times review, which concluded that the unexpected pairing of Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen worked. We didn’t like it as much as Manohla did, but The Wife and I had a moderately good time.

Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen play folks who grew up next door to each other as kids. Twenty-five years later, he has gone on to become a talented muckraking journalist of minor note and uncertain employability. She has become the US Secretary of State and a presidential hopeful, a glamorous celebrity and the most powerful woman in the world. When their paths cross as adults, the Beauty and the Beast connect, sparks fly and comic stations ensue. The most biting gags send up Rupert Murdoch and Fox News.

The drop-dead-beautiful Theron, of course, won the Best Actress Oscar for playing the not-drop-dead-beautiful serial killer Aileen in Monster. She has also become cinema’s best action star (male or female) with Mad Max: Fury Road and Atomic Blonde. But she’s also made two of the smartest comedies of the century in Young Adult and Tully, both times bravely playing an unsympathetic character. Long Shot is easily within her range, and she’s predictably excellent.

Rogen is always good in a comedy, and he’s fine here, too. Director Jonathan Levine previously directed two even better comedies, 50/50 and Warm Bodies.

This isn’t cinema for the ages, but Long Shot contains plenty of chuckles and several hard guffaws.

DVD/Stream of the Week: DEAR WHITE PEOPLE

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dear white people2

The San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) opens tomorrow, and this week’s video pick comes from the 2014 festival.  On its surface, the brilliant comedy Dear White People seems to be about racial identity, but – as writer-director Justin Simien points out – it’s really about personal identity (of which race is an important part). Set at a prestigious private college, Dear White People centers on a group of African-American students navigating the predominantly white college environment.

Each of the four primary characters has adopted a persona – choosing how they want others to view them. Middle class Sam is a fierce Black separatist (despite her White Dad and her eyes for that really nice White boy classmate). Coco, having made it to an elite college from the streets, is driven to succeed socially by ingratiating herself with the popular kids. Kyle, the Dean’s son, is the college BMOC, a traditional paragon, but with passions elsewhere. Lionel is floundering; despite being an African-American gay journalist, he doesn’t fit in with the Black kids, the LGBT community or the journalism clique. All four of their self-identities are challenged by campus events.

This very witty movie is flat-out hilarious. The title comes from Sam’s campus radio show, which features advice like “Dear White People, stop dancing!” and “Dear White People, don’t touch our hair; what are we – a petting zoo?”.  While the movie explores serious themes, it does so through raucous character-driven humor. It’s a real treat.

It’s the first feature for writer-director Justin Simien and it’s a stellar debut. Dear White People is on my list of Best Movies of 2014. Dear White People, which has been spun off into a popular Netflix series, is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, and Google Play.

THE “HIGH SIGN”: Buster on the verge

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THE HIGH SIGN: Buster Keaton and the Blinking Buzzards flashing the gang sign

The High Sign is 20-minutes of Buster Keaton’s rapid-fire comedy from 1921. Buster plays a young man who cons his way into a job managing an amusement park shooting gallery and inadvertently becomes entangled with a murderous gang of thugs. The plot exists to set up two exquisite comic set pieces. In the first, Keaton sets up an elaborate Rube Goldberg device to trick the boss into believing that Keaton is a master marksman. And the second is a triumph of Keaton’s ingenuity, as the gang members chase him through a cutaway two-story house, complete with trap doors and secret passageways.

Of course the gang itself, the Blinking Buzzards, is ridiculous, especially when they flash their secret gang sign. There’s also humor in the contrast between the towering gang leader (6′ 3″ Joe Roberts) and the diminutive (5′ 5″) Keaton.

The High Sign is a two-reeler, a 20-minute short film.  The conventional wisdom among early movie studio heads was that a comedy could only be sustain audience interest for 20 minutes. Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd would soon dispel that myth.

In fact, The High Sign came just before Keaton unleashed his string of comic masterpiece features:  Sherlock, Jr. (1924), The Navigator (1924), Seven Chances (1925), The General (1926), Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) and The Cameraman (1928).  After The Cameraman, Keaton’s new studio took away his creative control, and his career (and personal life) crashed.

I saw The High Sign at Cinequest, accompanied by world-renowned Dennis James on the Mighty Wurlitzer organ, before Steamboat Bill Jr.  I recommend Sal Pizarro’s excellent profile of Dennis James in the Mercury News.

Also known as The “High Sign”, the film plays occasionally on Turner Classic Movies and possibly bootleg versions can be streamed on YouTube and Vimeo.

Buster Keaton in THE HIGH SIGN

THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT: an amiable parable

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THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT

In the amiable comedy The Way You Look Tonight, Peter meets a woman through a dating app, but can’t find her again despite their connection and a torrid one-nighter.  Still yearning for his mystery flame, he dates a series of women, but remains unfulfilled.  Now, it’s hard to write about this movie without spoiling the hook, but let’s just say that he discovers that a group of people exist with a startling fictional condition.

Indeed, the two funniest sequences are when Peter finds out that he is the last human to find out about this condition and when he attends the support group for the afflicted (of COURSE they have one).

Nick Fink is appealing as Peter and the rest of the cast is uniformly excellent, especially the horde of actresses who play his dates.

Can someone get past appearance –  age, race, body type – to connect with a soul mate?  The Way You Look Tonight is actually a parable cloaked in a romantic comedy.  This is the first feature for writer-director John Cerrito.

Cinequest hosts the world premiere of The Way You Look Tonight

VANILLA: rich in character-driven humor

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Kelsea Bauman-Murphy and appendage in VANILLA

In the winning comedy Vanilla, Elliot (Will Dennis) is stuck in a regimented life of coding software, emerging from his apartment only for gym workouts and food.  Kimmie (Kelsea Bauman-Murphy) is a kookie free spirit, but she’s stuck, too, unable to fulfill her aspiration to become a stand-up comic.  Events conspire to lead the two into a three-day road trip from New York to New Orleans.  Kimmie pitches it to Elliot as a date.  But Elliot really sees the chance to reconnect in New Orleans with his ex-girlfriend Samantha, for whom he still pining. What could go wrong?

We have an odd couple on the road, so funny stuff happens – and this is a funny movie.  Naturally, the audience is waiting for the two to jump into bed together.  But Vanilla is fundamentally a portrait of these two people, both comfortable in their ruts.  Elliot is posing as an entrepreneur, and Kimmie is posing as a comedian-in-the-making; something is going to have to shake up these two so each can grow.  Kimmie seems utterly intrepid, but we learn that she can be paralyzed by self-consciousness, just like Elliot.

Vanilla is written and directed by its star, Will Dennis, in his first feature film.  It’s an impressive debut, rich in character-driven humor.

Dennis understands not to linger on a gag; (Yorgos Lanthimos should pay close attention to this).  Dennis has Elliot try to eat a beignet in a bayou tour boat; it only works because it’s the briefest of gags.    There’s a montage of bad would-be comics at an open mic night that is brilliant in its understanding of why they think they’re funny and why they’re not.  Dennis also works in a random encounter with America’s most earnest fish store guy (Lowell Landes).  And “Anyone ever tell you that you have a Natalie Portman thing going on?” becomes a very funny come-on line.

Dennis is very good as Elliot, subtly capturing his unease, judginess and pathetic obsession with Samantha.  Bauman-Murphy makes Kimmie’s kookiness, which could easily be annoying, lovable.

Jo Firestone is perfect as Elliot’s ex Samantha.   Firestone shows us a glimpse of why Elliot would fall for her, and then a massive dose of why she’s bad for him.  Let’s just say that I recognized Samantha (as a friend’s ex-girlfriend, not mine).

The satisfying ending of Vanilla is authentic, true to the characters and NOT what would be expected from a run-of-the-mill rom com.

Cinequest hosts the world premiere of Vanilla, where Silicon Valley audiences will appreciate Elliot’s delusion that his clunky app will go viral – if only users would spend enough time learning it.

TRAVEL BAN: MAKING AMERICA LAUGH AGAIN: using comedy to explore the uncomfortable

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Comic Aron Kader in TRAVEL BAN: MAKE AMERICA LAUGH AGAIN

Since medieval court jesters tweaked royal courts, we’ve used comedy to explore difficult conversations.  In the documentary Travel Ban: Making America Laugh Again, comedians confront the misunderstanding, bigotry and hatred faced by Americans who are Muslim and by Americans whose families come from the Middle East.

One unfortunate aspect of our culture is the impatience with and resistance to accepting nuance and complication.  Many Americans are content to accept a world in which “the Middle East” is a nation – one entity that is ever-hostile to the United States and ever evil-intentioned to all Americans.

Muslims and Middle Easterners have always endured negative stereotypes, made worse by 9/11.  But, this has worsened in the Trump Era because Trump empowers and licenses the open spewing of hate speech into our national discourse.

In response, Comics Aron Kader, Raz Jobrani and Ahmed Ahmed, who performed on the Arabian Knights and Axis of Evil comedy tours, mobilized even more stand-up comics for the Travel Ban tour.

Travel Ban includes the on-stage and off-stage banter of over a dozen American comics of Middle Eastern heritage or Muslim religion.  As one would expect, some are far funnier than others. My favorite is Feraz Ozel, who also has the movie’s funniest line in response to “Why don’t the good Muslims get together and fight the bad Muslims?”  (You’ll have to watch the movie for to get the devastating punchline.

Travel Ban is NOT purely a concert film; we do see performances, but the comics also discuss their experiences off-stage.  For context, there are some bracing videos of actual hate crimes and hateful rants by ignorant “real Americans”.  And Travel Ban brings in some key factual tidbits; for example, zero Americans have been killed by anyone from any of the countries targeted by Trump’s travel ban.

This is a serious film with some hilarious comedy.   As one of the comics says off-stage, “a good comedian makes people laugh, a great comedian makes them think”.

Cinequest hosts the world premiere of Travel Ban: Making America Laugh Again.

https://vimeo.com/292645468

TABOO: the uncomfortable line between empathy and making funny

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TABOO

Many will cringe at the promise of the Belgian reality show Taboo:  humorist Philippe Geubels spends time with four dying people and then hosts an entire audience full of terminally ill people for his stand-up comedy show – about their situation. It’s surprisingly empathetic and touching.

Cinequest hosts the North American premiere of Taboo in the television section of the fest.  Taboo is likely to be one of the most controversial – and one of the most popular – entries in the festival. My complete review will appear when Taboo is released in the US.

HAPPIER TIMES, GRUMP: personal connection skips a generation

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HAPPIER TIMES, GRUMP

In the Finnish family comedy Happier Times, Grump, a grouchy and emotionally-repressed Finnish farmer has been content to alienate everyone in his life, but then gets the chance to step up and support his teen granddaughter emotionally. The curmudgeon’s son, the girl’s father, is a Yuppie living in Belgium and he’s a piece of work himself; he has long resented the old man’s harshness and emotional detachment. The worlds of the simple old farmer and the hyper-connected urban teenager are centuries apart, but the odd couple must connect to handle a crisis in the girl’s life.

To enjoy Happier Times, Grump, the audience must 1) be amused by the politically incorrect and Luddite pronouncements of the old man and 2) relish an overtly sentimental ending.