Posts

Showing posts with the label Comedy

The Holdovers (2023)

Image
Sometimes I'll say a movie doesn't have much of a plot, or that it's not driven by its story. In most cases, I'm lying: the movie has a plot, it's just that said plot is driven primarily by subtle character interactions and developments that are both difficult to remember and even more difficult to recap. In other words, I'm really saying the movie's plot isn't defined by external story beats but internal growth. The Holdovers is one such film. I'm spelling that all out, because I don't want to give the impression that very little occurs in the course of the movie, or that there's anything less than fantastic about the writing. This is an amazing movie, and it deserves the accolades it's received. But it's also a subtle movie, which means it's a pain in the ass to actually describe the plot, so don't expect more than a vague overview this time. The premise centers around two or three characters, depending on which side of the

Mouse Hunt (1997)

Image
Just about the only thing you'd describe as subtle in this comedy from the late '90s is its holiday setting, which - to be fair - is a bit ambiguous. The film definitely starts just before Christmas, though even that takes a little while to be established. Christmas Eve plays into the story in a fairly significant way, though we sort of breeze through the 25th itself. After that, the timeline gets a little muddled, though it certainly seems like virtually all of the movie would have to be set between Christmas and New Year's. But I'm getting quite a bit ahead of myself. Let's start by acknowledging what I assume is obvious from the seemingly contradictory fact that this involves some pretty impressive talent yet has been virtually forgotten: it's not good. That's not entirely accurate. Instead, let's say this really doesn't work, and most people without an interest in Gore Verbinski's filmography would be better off skipping it. This is Verbinski

WordWorld: The Christmas Star/A Christmas Present for Dog (2008)

Image
FYI: This show is watched by our 4-year-old. Her feedback will be included in this review. WorldWorld is a PBS show (originally 2007-2011) that teaches preschoolers basic spelling and phonics along with some other positive messages. I've always found it generally amusing, although the in-world rules raise a lot of questions.  All the things, including the characters, are physically made up of the letters that spell their names. And if you can spell something, you can create it. For example, if you line up the letters H, A, T, you now have a hat. So it's a bit like the Star Trek question of why anything would be scarce in a world with replicators, but it's an exponentially larger issue here because the characters find letters basically anywhere (they don't seem to be a finite resource) and in several episodes, it's established that you can pluralize words to create infinite stuff.  Each half-hour episode includes two separate stories.   The Christmas Star This story

A Biltmore Christmas (2023)

Image
Fairly high concept for a Hallmark movie, this is about a screenwriter scripting a remake of a classic Hollywood Christmas movie getting magically transported back to the production of said movie in 1947 and falling in love with its tragically doomed star. If all that sounds a tad over-ambitious for a studio known for cranking out relatively uniform (but surprisingly high-quality) low-budget television movies... well... that is an issue here. While A Biltmore Christmas is decent, it's clear they're biting off a bit more than they can chew. Watching, you can tell everyone involved is putting in real effort, but you can see where they just didn't have the time to set up complex shots, learn more than surface-level impersonations of characters from classic Hollywood films, or nail the look and feel of the era they were emulating. I don't think any of that is necessarily a dealbreaker, depending on what you want out of this. This is, after all, a TV Christmas movie, and in

Spoiler Alert (2022)

Image
Spoiler Alert is a romantic dramedy starring Jim Parsons based on a memoir titled, "Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies at the End", directed by Michael Showalter (the guy who made The Big Sick). The adaptation is co-written by Dan Savage, making his screenwriting debut. That's a pretty remarkable collection of talent, and I didn't even mention that Sally Field and Bill Irwin have supporting roles. The movie is effectively split into two sections: the first is a straightforward rom-com about a gay couple falling in love, building a life together, and encountering complications. Around the halfway mark, the film pivots to drama, as one of the two leads is diagnosed with cancer, which eventually kills him. The movie let's you know where it's heading at the start (sooner, if you're familiar with the full title of the book it's based on), but that doesn't make the transition any less jarring. That's intentional, obviously. The movie is an exploration of t

Made for Each Other (1971)

Image
While looking for background on the 1939 movie of the same name, I saw a Wikipedia article about this. I clicked through expecting to find a remake but discovered the two movies were completely unconnected. Much to my surprise, this coincidentally is also a Christmas movie (more so, in fact). The 1970s are probably the decade we've explored the least, so I was excited to find a movie I never knew existed from the era. Or at least I was until I started watching it. To be fair, I'm not at all certain that this is actually bad or if the style of humor is simply so grounded in the era it was made that it feels alien to someone watching fifty years later. I suppose the distinction is largely academic: either way, this isn't something virtually anyone is going to be interested in sitting through today. The movie is written by its two costars, Renée Taylor and Joseph Bologna, a married couple whose prior screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award. That one was based on a play t

Made for Each Other (1939)

Image
I've encountered a few movies from the 1930s that follow a similar template to Made for Each Other, a film that shifts genre relatively dramatically between comedy and melodrama. The idea seems to be to offer a film encompassing a bit of everything, or at least as close as they could cram in. This can feel off-putting now that we're no longer accustomed to this particular mix of tones, but conceptually it's not all that different than what Marvel movies attempt: it's only that the specific genres being incorporated have changed. That does mean this movie feels dated in a way several more straightforward comedies don't. The first half of Made for Each Other holds up pretty well, but as the movie grows more and more serious, I found it difficult to enjoy unironically. Though, for better or worse, moments of the last third kind of come off as unintentionally funny. The movie stars Carole Lombard and James Stewart as newlyweds Jane and John, who eloped immediately after

Red Snow (2021)

Image
After watching Red Snow, I find myself a little surprised it's not better known, which is another way of saying I had a blast watching it. This is a horror/comedy vampire movie, and - honestly - that's about all I want to tell you before dropping a *spoiler warning* and advising those of you who like this sort of thing to check it out. Okay, I'll toss you a few more bones, in case you need more convincing. Or, in the case of those of you who are die-hard horror fans, perhaps a warning to temper your expectations. After all, this is a movie *I* really enjoyed, and - in case you've forgotten - I don't exactly have the best tolerance for scares, gore, and the like. Red Snow is absolutely the kind of R-rated horror movie that elicits complaints about not being gross or scary enough for a significant subset of the genre's fanbase. If that's a deal-breaker for you, you're probably better off skipping this. But for the rest of you, it's delightful. And, for

The Christmas Raccoons (1980)

Image
Animated Christmas specials serving as stealth pilots is something of a tradition in its own right. The most successful example, of course, was The Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire , but a number of other properties attempted to use the format , as well, including the one we're looking at today. Astonishingly, this one seems to have been successful, as it spawned a number of additional specials and eventually a series that lasted for five years. Lindsay grew up watching said series - I did not. She assures me that the kids who appear in the frame story of this special would be dropped pretty fast, with the world defaulting to one entirely occupied by anthropomorphic animals. That premise does sound at least marginally better than what we just watched. Let's start there. We're introduced to a park ranger, his two kids, and their dog, Schaeffer. The forest they're living in (and that the ranger is looking after) is being mysteriously cut down, so he goes to investigate

Round and Round (2023)

Image
Last year we made time to review a decent number of Hallmark holiday movies and found the recent entries quite a bit better on average than we expected. The best of the bunch was Hanukkah on Rye , a delightful classic romantic comedy I found funny and sweet. The movie received a bit of backlash due to what some viewers felt were stereotypes  but otherwise seemed to be well received, so it's not too surprising to see a new entry this year. What is surprising is the premise: rather than play it safe with another straightforward romcom, Round and Round is a time loop movie in the vein of Groundhog Day or Palm Springs, both of which are namechecked and discussed by characters in Round and Round as they try to figure out the temporal disturbance at the movie's core. I'll cut to the chase and reveal I don't think Round and Round is in quite the same league as its predecessor, but it's nevertheless a solid TV movie and - largely by default - probably the second-best Hanukk

Minnie's Bow-Toons: Oh, Christmas Tree (2013), Minnie's Bow-Toons: Party Palace Pals: Clarabelle's Christmas Sweater (2021), Minnie's Bow-Toons: Camp Minnie: Campground Christmas (2023)

Image
Here's another parent review for y'all. At some point earlier this year, my daughter decided that she was interested in the Minnie's Bow-Toons shorts that are available on Disney+. And I discovered that there's a whole dang animated Disney Junior universe. As far as I can tell, first there was a popular animated show for preschoolers about Mickey Mouse and friends called Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Minnie's Bow-Toons is a series of shorts spinning off of that show. But after the original MMC stopped airing, it was retooled and returned as a new show in a similar style: Mickey Mouse Roadster Racers, which ran for two seasons before the format was changed again and it was renamed Mickey Mouse Mixed-Up Adventures. This spawned more sets of spin-off shorts, including new seasons of Bow-Toons, now called Minnie's Bow-Toons: Party Palace Pals. The latest season of Bow-Toons, Camp Minnie, changes up its format even further to focus on outdoor activities. There are even mor

Sun Valley Serenade (1941)

Image
Despite not having a particularly complicated plot or premise, Sun Valley Serenade is the kind of movie that you almost have to see to believe. I say "almost" because, while there's a lot to like here, some dated stylistic elements hold it back from crossing that line into unconditional recommendation territory. It comes close, mainly thanks to the mid-movie sequences in which... well.... Okay, here's the thing: this movie occupies a very unusual place on the spectrum of movies best seen unspoiled. There's a delightful twist in tone and point of view that's entirely unintentional. Audiences in 1941 were already in on something that those watching eight decades later won't be, and it recontextualizes the movie in some fascinating ways. So, if you're a really big fan of romantic comedies from this era and have a high tolerance for musical numbers that are mostly video recordings of famous performers playing instruments (a substantial portion of this movi