comedy

HAIL, CAESAR: cool Hollywood parodies, but ultimately empty

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Alden Ehrenreich in HAIL, CAESAR
Alden Ehrenreich in HAIL, CAESAR

Here’s the problem with the Coen Brothers’ disappointingly empty comedy Hail, Caesar – there is no real story at its core.  The plot ostensibly centers on commies kidnapping a movie star and a studio exec mulling over a job outside the movie industry.  But these are contrived as an excuse to parody Old Hollywood and the movie conventions of the studio Golden Age.  And that’s not enough by itself to make up a really good movie.  At the end of Hail, Caesar, the guy sitting behind me said, “That’s it?”.

The parodies are well-executed, and the more you know about movies, the richer the laughs.  The characters are making a ponderously devout sword-and-sandal epic called Hail, Caesar, which is closely modeled on the 1959 Ben-Hur, right down to the subtitle of the source novel, “A Tale of the Christ”.   The epic stars a charismatic but shallow leading man, played well by George Clooney.  This part is funny.

So is a spectacularly executed Busby Berkeley number with Scarlett Johansson as an Esther Williams type aquatic movie star.  And Channing Tatum shines in a Gene Kelly-like song-and-dance set piece.  Later in the film, famed cinematographer Roger Eakins brilliantly lights Tatum as an icon of Soviet-era Socialist Realism.

By far the best part of Hail, Caesar is Alden Ehrenreich as a singing cowboy.  Where did they find this guy?  Ehrenreich is convincing and hilarious as he performs  tricks with his pistol, horse and lariat in a formula Western and then is forced to fit into a period costume for a drawing-room romantic drama.  It’s an exuberantly singular performance, and something we haven’t seen on-screen since Gene Autrey and Roy Rogers.

All of the actors are good here, including Josh Brolin as the lead, and Clooney, Johansson, Tatum, Ralph Fiennes and Tila Swinton.   Frances McDormand is wasted in a very brief physical comedy bit.   That old scene-stealer Clancy Brown, here growling as the actor playing Gracchus in the Hail, Caesar-in-the-movie-Hail, Caesar shows why he’s one of my favorite character actors

There are always expectations of a Coen Brothers film, because of their masterpieces: Fargo, True Grit, Blood Simple and their seriously underrrated A Serious Man.  Plus there’s the critical favorite No Country for Old Men and the cult fave The Big Lebowski.  But they’ve also made some more forgettable fare (Inside Llewyn Davis, Burn After Reading) and Hail, Caesar is one of them.

Bottom line:  if you want to enjoy a string of first class movie parodies, see Hail, Caesar.  If you’re looking for something more, skip it.

MOONWALKERS: Ron Perlman, but not much else

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Ron Perlman and Rupert Grint in MOONWALKERS
Rupert Grint and in MOONWALKERS

The premise of Moonwalkers is that the US Government conspired to film a simulated moon landing so, just in case something went wrong with the 1969 Moon Landing, they could bamboozle the public with a faux success.  (This, of course, is a wry joke on the conspiracy theories claiming that the historical Moon Landing was faked.)  In Moonwalkers, a burned-out CIA agent (Ron Perlman) is tapped to get Stanley Kubrick, no less, to shoot the phony movie.  Unfortunately, he happens upon precisely the wrong drug addled hustler (Rupert Grint of Harry Potter) to put him in touch with Kubrick, and a mediocre madcap comedy ensues.

Nothing much here, but it’s all in good fun, and Ron Perlman is always a hoot. Moonwalkers is available streaming from Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH CONTEMPLATING EXISTENCE: deadpan doesn’t begin to describe this movie

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A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH CONTEMPLATING EXISTENCE
A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH CONTEMPLATING EXISTENCE

Some viewers are going to hate, hate, hate the droll Swedish existentialist comedy A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Contemplating Existence, but it’s kind of a masterpiece.   For most of its 101 minutes, dull Swedes sit and stand talking about dull things.  It’s no secret that the Scandinavians (who The Wife refers to as “Your people”) are not the most lively bunch.  Filmmaker Roy Andersson uses this trope to probe the meaning of life itself.

Salon.com critic Andrew O’Hehir has accurately described this film as “extreme-deadpan”.  It is made up of vignettes filmed in static shots where people hardly move for 1-4 minutes – a looooong time.  There is nothing on the walls of any of the bleak rooms.  The characters converse in empty social conventions, talking about weather and such.  Everyone says, “I’m happy to hear that you’re doing fine” because they can’t think of anything else to say.  The highlight of their lives is when a comely young woman removes a stone from her shoe.  In one bus stop discussion about what day of the week it is, we have the theme distilled: “it would be chaos” if we didn’t follow the routine. All of these people need more than a little chaos.

This is the third movie in a trilogy by Andersson. (I’ve seen and relished one of the prior films, Songs from the Second Floor).  Like Pigeon, Songs is very funny, but Pigeon is more ambitious and digs deeper.

In the primary recurring thread, we follow a pair of sad sack novelty salesmen, who see their hopeless mission as “to help people have fun”.  The joke is there may not be any value/fun/point to life but ESPECIALLY if you are a brooding Swede.

During the end credits, there is a final contrast, juxtaposing the unrestrained American rockabilly music set against an image of mordant Swedes.

There are absurdist episodes where 18th Century King Carl XII rides his steed into a modern Swedish cafe.  (It helps to know that Carl spurned the company of women and that his defeat in the Battle of Poltava signaled the end of Swedish empire.)

And then there is a horrifyingly surreal dream sequence that illustrates the horrors of European colonialism.  It is about inhumane brutality that Andersson believes still haunts Europe until forgiveness is sought; there is a reference to Sweden’s brief colonial past. This segment is less evocative (and even unnecessary) for US viewers unless we relate it to our own legacy of slavery.

Is the movie pointless? Or is the point that life is pointless?  We do see some brief tender moments of a couple at a window and another in a meadow.  The foe, it seems, is loneliness.  We have only each other.

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Contemplating Existence is available to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

an offbeat choice for a Christmas movie

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TANGERINE
TANGERINE

Here’s an offbeat choice for a Christmas movie – the raucous and raunchy high energy comedy Tangerine is set on Christmas Eve.  Of course, it’s not a family movie in that it’s appropriate for children, but it is about families by choice.  Tangerine is available to stream from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

DON VERDEAN: money changers in the temple

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DON VERDEAN
Jermaine Clement, Amy Ryan and Sam Rockwell in DON VERDEAN

Don Verdean is a dark comedy from filmmakers Jared and Jerusha Hess (Napoleon Dynamite), a smart and cynical take on the faux scientists embraced by the Christian Right.  Sam Rockwell plays the title character, a Christian “archaeologist” of dubious credentials and ethics who keeps “discovering” Biblical relics and marketing them to gullible true believers.

Verdean and his assistants (Amy Ryan and Jermaine Clement) find themselves entangled with rival pastors, both charlatans.  One is a former convict (Danny McBride) with a former hooker wife (Leslie Bibb); the other is a former Satanist (Will Forte) with his own bogus academic henchman (Sky Elobar).  The cast is all good.  Sam Rockwell sounds like he is channeling a TV preacher version of Sam Elliott.

But the real revelation is Jermaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords, who plays Verdean’s Israeli fixer, Boaz.  The Hesses start Boaz out as a footnote and then gradually develop him into one of the lead characters.  Clement imbues Boaz with an unintentional sneer, a sometimes puzzling Hebrew accent and ascendant venality.  Clement even gets a very funny dance bit (less extended and sidesplitting than the one in Napoleon Dynamite but funny nonetheless).

Jared and Jerusha Hess are the team behind Napoleon Dynamite, a pretty solid comedy credential.  The Hesses know of what they write.  They’re not just Hollywood religion-mockers – both attended BYU.

Here’s an example.  The Hesses gave Clement’s character the name of Boaz.  Those who know the Old Testament story of Ruth (we’re only talking Jews and Fundamentalist Christians here) will recognize Boaz as a major Good Guy.  Some may even know that Boaz was an ancestor of both David and Jesus, who some scholars see as a “pre-figure” of Christ.  But Boaz is a Biblical name that nobody gives their kid – so you never meet a Boaz today.  Given the arc of the Boaz character in Don Verdean, the name is brilliantly ironic.

There are more cynical chuckles here than there are gut-busting guffaws.   In one particularly inspired touch, the Hesses inserted Put Your Hand in the Hand into the soundtrack.  Don Verdean is a little movie that’s sure to be overlooked during the big Holiday movie season, but there aren’t many good comedies in theaters now, so it’s a good choice for those looking for a dark indie comedy.

CHI-RAQ: Spike’s plea for peace with justice…and a sex comedy

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Teyonah Parris in CHI-RAQ
Teyonah Parris in CHI-RAQ

Chi-Raq is Spike Lee’s impassioned plea for peace with justice in the inner city.  The Chi-Raq of the title is Chicago, where there have been more gun deaths in the past 15 years than there have been Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined – a shocking and wholly unacceptable statistic that opens the movie.

Lee has adapted the Aristophanes play Lysistrata, where the ancient Greek women withhold sex until their men negotiate an end to war.   Here, it’s the women of today’s Chicago who suspend the sexual privileges of their gang-banging boyfriends.  Lee stays pretty close to the original Lysistrata, with lines sometimes in rap verse and with increasingly dapper Samuel L. Jackson as a one-man chorus who comments directly to the audience.

In a particularly inspired tactic, the men try to soften the woman’s resolve with Oh Girl by the Chi-Lites.

Lysistrata herself, the women’s ring leader, is played by Teyonah Parris, who pulls off the responsibility of being in virtually every scene. In her skanky outfits and massive Afro, Parris is unrecognizable as the controlled and restrained Sterling Cooper secretary Dawn Chambers in Mad Men.

John Cusack plays a bleeding heart priest, whose diatribe against the systems that breed violence is the weakest part of the movie (not Cusack’s fault – it’s the writing).   Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Hudson and Angela Bassett are all excellent.  Overall, Chi-Raq is pretty watchable.

Stream of the Week: TANGERINE: Two transgender hookers walk into a donut shop…

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TANGERINE
TANGERINE

Two transgender hookers walk into a donut shop in Hollywood…that’s not the start of a joke, but it’s the start of this pretty funny movie. The raucous and raunchy high energy comedy Tangerine centers on Alexandra and Sin-Dee, played respectively by the non-actors Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez. Sin-Dee takes them on a quest to track down her wayward pimp/boyfriend, and, although Alexandra makes her promise “no drama”, you know that’s not gonna happen. Alexandra is focused on her own goal – her singing performance tonight at a local club. We also meet the Armenian cabbie Razmik (Karren Karagulian), who has his own secret. And did I mention that it’s Christmas Eve?

The two leads are wonderfully appealing and their misadventures are very funny.  A confrontation between an Armenian mother-in-law on the warpath, all the main characters and a pimp is wonderfully madcap.  The movie’s ending is surprisingly moving.

Tangerine was shot on an iPhone. This is not a gimmick. The intimacy and urgency of this character-driven movie is a good fit with the iPhone. There really isn’t any call for  helicopter shots or the like. The richness of the colors has been enhanced in post-production, so the iPhone cinematography isn’t any distraction at all. (See the shot below.)

You can stream Tangerine on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and some cable/satellite PPV.  (Or you can buy the DVD from a retailer.)

TANGERINE
TANGERINE

To follow the beginning of the film, it helps to know that “fish” is transgender slang for a person born with female anatomy.

There’s also an extremely funny cameo by Clu Gulager(!) as a loquacious taxi passenger.

Tangerine is written and directed by Sean Baker, who made Starlet, another indie about marginal Angelenos that I admired.

Tangerine is available to stream from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

 

3 STILL STANDING: the comics who spurned LA

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the stars of 3 STILL STANDING: Larry "Bubbles" Brown, Johnny Steele, Will Durst
The stars of 3 STILL STANDING: Larry “Bubbles” Brown, Johnny Steele, Will Durst

The San Francisco comedy club scene of the 1980s was a Golden Age for the art form of stand-up comedy – and its practitioners do consider it an art form, not just an entertainment product.  That Bay Area scene launched major careers: Robin Williams, Dana Carvey, Paula Poundstone, Ellen DeGeneres, Bobby Slayton, Kevin Pollack, Whoopi Goldberg and Rob Schneider.  The documentary 3 Still Standing tells the story of three of their comedy peers who flourished in the 1980s but chose not to “go to LA” and how they’ve dealt with the “downsizing”, when cable TV killed the market for stand-up comedy in clubs.

The three comics – Will Durst, Larry “Bubbles” Brown and Johnny Steele – are what make 3 Still Standing so compelling.  Durst is a master of sharp political comedy in a society that is now more interested in vacuous celebrities.  Steele’s observations are too subversive for a mainstream that is less hip and a whole lot less smart.  Brown, whose appearances on Letterman were 21 years apart, is no longer young enough for the decision-makers who book comedy.  But they’re all experts in their craft, and their material is hilarious.

Larry “Bubbles” Brown is a revelation.  His comic persona is based on his half-empty world view and his self-deprecating view of his looks.

“It’s been a great day for me. Haven’t passed any blood.”

“I’m in the medical textbooks as one of the major causes of vaginal dryness”.

“Giving me Viagra is like giving a doorbell to a homeless guy.”

We’ve seen the global and technological economic changes that end once-promising career paths and force us to adapt or else.  Here, the catalysts are both techno-economic (the supplanting/absorption of the comedy market by cable television)  and cultural (the continued dumbing-down of our society).   But it’s rare that the aging victims among us are so damn fun to watch as these three artists.

Filmmakers Donna Locicero and Richard Campos started the project “as a Valentine to the era that we enjoyed so much”.  That would have been an entertaining movie.  But 3 Still Standing gained more depth and texture when it evolved into the character-driven story of these three guys and their plight.  In a post-screening Q & A, Campos also noted that “the San Francisco Bay Area is a character in the film”.

Robin Williams and Dana Carvey are prominent parts of 3 Still Standing. Locicero said that Williams had seen several versions of the film, including the final cut – all to ensure that his segments didn’t overshadow the story of the three principals.

3 Still Standing opens on November 12 at Camera 3 in San Jose. On November 11, the San Jose Improv will host a screening with outtakes from the movie and live appearances by Durst, Brown and Steele.

Durst, Brown and Steele are inventive originals and important artists.  They prove that you can be on the wrong side of the marketplace and still be on the right side of history. I saw 3 Still Standing at the Camera Cinema Club.

 

ADDICTED TO FRESNO: mediocre writing sabotages a sex comedy

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Natasha Lyonne and Judy Greer in ADDICTED TO FRESNO
Natasha Lyonne and Judy Greer in ADDICTED TO FRESNO

In the limp comedy Addicted to Fresno,  the appealing Natasha Lyonne (Slums of Beverly Hills, Orange Is the New Black) plays an inspirational, plays-by-the-rules Fresno hotel maid.  She has taken in her wayward sister (Judy Greer), whose sex addiction has made her otherwise unemployable, and gotten her a similar job.   Having just left Sex Addiction Rehab, the sister is supposed to be in recovery, but is far from it.  Misadventures ensue.

The problem with Addicted to Fresno is that the screen-writing is mid-level sit-com, only much dirtier.  I generally like sex comedies, but Addicted to Fresno is pretty much unwatchable.

Addicted to Fresno is (justifiably) hard to find in theaters and also streaming on Amazon iTunes and Vudu.

Scare Week: WITCHING AND BITCHING

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WITCHING AND BITCHING
WITCHING AND BITCHING

The rockin’ Witching and Bitching (Las brujas de Zugarramurdi), by Spanish cult director Alex de la Iglesia, features a gang of robbers – one is dressed as a silver Jesus on the cross and another as a Green Army Guy – on the lam rocketing into an occult nightmare. They run smack dab into a coven of witches – the full-out Macbeth-stir-the-cauldron kind of witches. This film has the feel of an early Almodovar madcap comedy – if Almodovar were into goth horror. It’s all rapid-pulsed fun – and surprisingly smart.

The underlying theme is misogyny. The male characters grouse about the stereotypical complaints about women – all while themselves exemplifying the worst of the stereotypical male flaws. For example, one guy complains that his ex won’t consent to joint custody on the grounds of his irresponsibility – yet he brings their seven-year-old along on an armed robbery. One underlying joke is that the men see women as bitches, but it’s the men who spend the whole movie bitching. Another is that the men become trapped by REAL witches whose ball busting far exceeds the men’s most negative misogynistic fantasies.

These Spanish actors are wonderful, including the great Carmen Maura (Almodovar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Volver) and appropriately named hottie Carolina Bang. They’re very adept at the deadpan delivery of lines like this:

Driver: This village is damned. They hold witches sabbaths.
Boy: What’s that?
Robber: Like a kegger but medieval.

De la Iglesia maintains a deliciously frantic pace throughout. The final orgiastic ritual goes on a long time but maintains audience engagement.

This was the first de la Iglesia movie that I’d seen, but I’m definitely going to check out more of his work. Speaking of which, he nicely sets up a sequel. But go ahead and watch Witching and Bitching now – streaming in Amazon Instant, iTunes and Xbox Video.