Tag Archives: comedy

Tenacious D (1997)

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 70min Classic rock comedy by Kyle Gass and Jack Black. Guest starring John C. Reilly

Recap

***SPOILER WARNING! In this recap I spoil the full content of the first episode ***

KG and JB (played by Kyle Gass and Jack Black) are two chubby rock star wannabes. Every week they take their acoustic guitars to the open mic night and sing a hymn to their delusions. One day though the open mic host has had enough of them and confronts them with an ultimatum: they will not be tolerated on stage again until they finally come up with a new song. JB instantly embarks on the search for Inspirado, and because he is JB, he becomes more and more unbearable the longer he fruitlessly tries. Eventually KG has enough and quits the band. This traumatic experience of separation serves as the inspiration needed for their second song, a band reunion and a return to the open mic night.

Tenacious D was a comedy rock act that honed their skills on the stages of Los Angeles for several years before they got the chance to record three episodes with two stories each for HBO. This show has a rather classical approach to comedy, about losers who keep on both trying and failing. I also observed that these deluded losers may actually like what they see in the mirror, which is so much more than you can say about more grounded people who believe in everyday lies like the duty to self optimize and whatnot.

Tenacious D became an actual band complete with albums and concerts, and they also made a feature film which I like even better than the TV show. They even had Dio in the movie and guest starred in a Dio music video. Also this series opened doors at least for Jack Black who made School Of Rock and Nacho Libre (and Kyle Gass at least doesn’t look like he’s starving right now).

The TV show features John C. Reilly in the Sasquatch episode, and the other videos in the playlist feature Meat Loaf as JB’s father, Troy Gentile as young JB and Dio as himself and as a Dio poster. The Wonderboy video by the way was directed by Spike Jonze, and a lot of the drums were played by Dave Grohl.

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Brain Damage (1988)

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 84min Dark twisted comedy about addiction. Directed by Frank Henenlotter

Recap

Brian shows strange behavior, neglects real life, alienates the people who care for him and starts attending a sleazy underground night club. This comes as no surprise for us, the audience, because right at the beginning of the movie we see how he is hooked up on Elmer, a cute, penis shaped drug/parasite that keeps him happy. Trouble is that Elmer feeds on brains, so while Brian is spaced out he helps Elmer to murder people. This sounds like a good reason for a cold turkey, but how many people can starve their addiction without any help from anybody?

Well, this comedy is not too funny when you count the jokes that actually work, and since it’s about addiction the tragic aspects become more dominant in the second half. Yet this is not a straight, conventional horror movie either. This one is very bizarre and over the top, it’s got old-fashioned (or vintage) practical effects and puppet animation, and compared to normal horror movies it sure does go the extra mile. So yes, thumbs up.

(and before you ask: yes I know that some people keep on spelling it A-Y-L-M-E-R, but I just don’t get why? Because the goofy geezer in the movie insists? Fiddlesticks! In the end credits it’s spelled Elmer, and Elmer was also the title of the german VHS release)

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Caesar And Otto 2: Summer Camp Massacre (2009)

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 76min. Caesar And Otto horror parody movie with Felissa Rose.

Recap

Caesar and Otto leave town and become camp counselors because Caesar has bullied the police commissioner’s mentally challenged brother. Their father follows them to steal from the other counselors, and since this is summer camp, there is a whole lot of slashing going on.

Microbudget indie movies can be such a pain. In this one, for example, the “summer camp” consists of a white brick wall, a picnic table, two plastic barrels of toxic waste, some trees and shrubbery and a few tents. When you make a movie with such tiny production values it’s a smart move to pimp the story with some humor, and that’s what they do. Also, it’s an even smarter move to add clever ideas and fun and actual laughs, and surprisingly enough, they do just that, too. Much unlike many, oh so many other movies, this one is made with brains and dedication, and it’s actually fun to watch.

This is a comedy that actually works, and it’s part of Dave Campfield’s Caesar And Otto franchise that consists of 5 feature films and 2 shorts, which means that there is more of the same where this came from.

And do you remember Angela from Sleepaway Camp? Guess what, she is still working. I hope that she has got a day job because she seems to do only cheap indie stuff, but she’s still around, she’s fun, she’s hot and she adds some genuine summer sleepaway camp vibes to this movie.

However, I have only just watched the trailer which is much gorier than the entire movie in its youtube edit. So I guess I give it ⭐⭐⭐⭐, including a bonus for diligent indie filmmaking and another bonus for the benefit of doubt (It’s not Dave Campfield’s fault that I watched a butchered version). Be warned though that the youtube edit is good, but not that good.

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The Little Shop Of Horrors (1960)

⭐⭐⭐ 72min Classic horror comedy directed by Roger Corman with an early appearance of Jack Nicholson

Recap

Seymour is the hapless employee of a flower shop who is nursing a beautiful plant that he calls Audrey Junior after the colleague he is simping for. The shop isn’t doing so well until Audrey Junior becomes its attraction. Trouble is that that she is a carnivorous and dominant plant, bullying Seymour into being her butcher.

This is one of those horror movies that use comedy to make up for their lack of skill, budget and effort. This is not bad in itself, many okay and even good movies do this, and as usual the comedy indeed improves the quality of this one. However I watched the 1986 remake first, which had been diligently crafted by the man who had put his hand in the colon of Luke Skywalker’s jedi instructor. This remake today is a classic of timeless elegance, one of the 100 best movies ever made, so in comparison it makes the original look old, not vintage old, but geriatric.

So apart from being remade by Frank Oz, this has only two things going for it:

There is a legend that Roger Corman made this to win a bet. He had claimed that he could make a movie within only two days, and indeed it was made within two days in the studio plus some nightly outdoor shooting.

Also, in this one there is a very early appearance of a ridiculously young Jack Nicholson.

So I must say that this movie is barely okay. Especially for its historical value it is quite fit for nerds, but it just really didn’t age well.

A good way to quickly compare both movies is to compare the dentist scenes of the original with Jack Nicholson (Bonus 1) and the remake with Steve Martin and Bill Murray (Bonus 2)

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Making Of (2007)

⭐⭐⭐ 63min Mockumentary about a bunch of deluded college boys and their ambitious movie project.

Recap

So there are these deluded college boys who want to make a movie. They don’t have skills or experience, they don’t have actual costumes or actual sets, but they have an artsy script and they even have somebody who follows them around to shoot a making of. Reality is not gentle with them, at one point, for the duration of a lunchbreak, the director even ditches the project.

Yes, this is a valid way to deal with the fact that you cannot make an actual movie: you just make fun of yourself. In The Claire Wizard Thesis they made a parody of a found footage films, and it was okay, a little lukewarm and cowardish maybe. In How Not To Make A Horror Film they had wasted all that they had without a result, and now they were trying to make the most of this, which was a legit approach (even though in the end it felt like they were just plugging their upcoming t&a exploitation flick).

In this mockumentary, however, they are (sometimes painfully) honest when they are making fun of themselves, and also these people are extremely skilled compared to most indie filmers. Small wonder that this one is so much better than all those indie abonimations that are made and marketed for profit. Seven years later the makers of this one went on to make one of my favorite indie movies, The Paranormals.

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Jack Frost (1997)

5/10 89min Christmas comedy about a killer snowman.

Recap

So there is Jack Frost, a convicted serial killer on the way to his execution. He escapes but is sprayed with a genetic liquid that turns him into a snowman. Now he is after the cop who arrested him and his family. An FBI agent comes to town and with him a scientist who tries to retrieve the genetic snowman for his employers.

So they made a holiday movie without James Stewart or Tim Allen. What a splendid idea. Joe Dante is a true mastermind who in 1984 gave us Gremlins, the movie that is for Christmas what Halloween and Friday The 13th are for Halloween and friday the 13th. However, some people tried this again in 1997, but without a budget or inspiration. There is no horror and no special effects in this one, and only part of the comedy actually works. So, yes, this movie is better than Jack Frost (1998), but I don’t recommend it unless you have christmas time to kill.

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Marx Brothers 3: Monkey Business (1931)

The Marx Brothers as stoways on an ocean steamer. 77min imdb

Recap:

In this movie the Marx Brothers are stoways on an ocean steamer, always on the run from the ship’s crew and always chasing the girls. Then Zeppo and Groucho are hired as the henchmen of a criminal while Harpo and Chico become the bodyguards of the criminal’s designated victim. Eventually the four of them pretend to be Maurice Chevalier to immigrate into the USA, and then the criminal abducts Zeppo’s love interest.

Well, yes. In some of the best movies the plot is just the shortest path between two punchlines. And while working for MGM sure was a smart move careerwise, this old Paramount movie has more gags in it than several of the later films together. So what can I say? They just don’t make old movies like they used to, so if you haven’t seen it, watch it now. And if you know it already you will want to re-watch it soon anyway.

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The VelociPastor (2018)

He is on a mission from god. At least that’s what he says. 75min imdb

Recap:

Velocipastor is like the child of love of Bruce Banner and Frank Castle: after his parents are murdered, pastor Doug Jones goes to mourn in China where he is bitten by a radioactive artifact. From now on he HULKS into a Velocipastor who PUNISHES the evildoers. And that’s only the first 15 minutes of the movie. He kills the murderer of his parents in the confessional, a hooker that he has saved persuades him to become a freelance vigilante, his pastor friend wants him exorcised, a bunch of (chinese?) ninjas have an evil plan to drive people into the arms of the clergy, and Doug’s brother shows up.

I like to say that when you have neither the budget nor the skills to make an actual movie, you can still go for a silly comedy. Of course, many filmmakers do just that, and of course the results often are, well, a little underwhelming. Still I say that this is the right thing to do, because a failed movie helps nobody, while a substandard trash comedy can still be loved by stoners and/or nerds. This is why I was confident when I watched this movie, because how bad could it get?

Actually this one is very good! Yes, this one is cheap, literally. One minute into the movie they substitute the VFX of a car on fire with the words “VFX: Car on fire”, and that of course is a bold move. From this point it could go down quite rapidly, but it doesn’t. The movie keeps its level quite steadily, the filmmakers know what they’re doing, taking all these movie tropes over the top without ruining them. I am not going to praise this as the best movie ever, those who do this are obviously either stoners or hipsters, but full of postmodern irony in any case. What I do say however that this is a very good movie and definitely worth watching.

(What I would like to know, though: why is the hero called Doug Jones? In real life Doug Jones is an actor/mime who often works for Guillermo del Toro, like in the Hellboy movies or in El laberinto Del Fauno/Pan’s Labyrinth.)

(Even more important: according to imdb this is a 75min movie. So why is the YouTube edit both 70min AND age restricted?)

So there are these two rich aunties who are having a party, and everybody who wants to inherit their money shows up. The black sheep of the family however is in jail right now, so he sends a box that contains a vapor which turns the sweet old aunties into demons.

Some of the family try to escape, but they don’t get far, the others do what people always do in this kind of movies: they hide until they decide to leave their hiding places, they search for each other, they split up, and of course there is a hole lot yelling and screaming and arguing.

I am so glad that I found this one. Sure, it’s not the best movie ever: the storytelling is so choppy and so much stuff happens offscreen that I kept on thinking that maybe I was watching a butchered version. But the gore that is shown is of very good quality, and not all, but part of the comedy stuff works well. I believe that they knew very well what they were doing. They knew that they couldn’t make a really great move, so they decided to make a nice little black comedy that would find its audience despite its flaws, and it worked.

This movie has passed the test of time and is very enjoyable even today.

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Trailer

So at first there is this alien crash landing on earth, but we don’t see its face because it wears an incredibly cheap halloween mask. Then there is some kind of a Québec James stealing an alien gazonga from a tribe of, well, I guess they are supposed to be Amazonas Amazons, or something like that. A scientist extracts a substance called KTNT from the gazonga and injects it into a plush gorilla who escapes and makes friends with two annoying brats, until he transmogrifies into a skyskrapersized man in a Halloween gorilla costume.

Well, when I found this movie I expected a new but old fashioned Kaiju movie, probably with a man in a gorilla suit. A few minutes into the movie I realized that it was a comedy, and I thought “good thing, too. Old-fashioned Kaiju movies are notorious for being unvoluntarily funny, so you may just as well be deliberately funny. And if you keep on going all the way over the top all the time then maybe nobody will notice that you are not skilled movie makers.”

Boy, was I wrong! Sure they went all over the top all of the time, but it just was more cringy than funny. Now, considering that this movie is so overwhelmingly bad and most it consists of stock footage and green screen action and considering that the actors playing the annoying brats share the director’s last name and considering when the movie was produced I really thought that this was one of the sweetest and dandiest things a father could do to keep his family busy while in quarantine, and I wondered how this ever got a proper release and, given the miniscule budget, whether there even was a chance that this labor of love could make a profit of a Canadian Dollar or two, which would be quite deserved.

Boy, was I wrong again. Looking to confirm my theory I did a tiny bit of research and found out that Brett Kelly is the director of 40+ movies! This man is a fraudster who makes a living by selling amaturds as actual movies! Now that was food for thought for me. Because before I realized that I was scammed I felt, in a way, entertained. So, I guess now I have to decide whether or not I want to enjoy more of this rubbish. Spoiler: probably I will watch some more of his stuff, just like other people keep on staring at car crashes, and eventually I will be fed up, deciding that these “movies” are just too bad even to be so-bad-that-it’s-good.

Call Girl Of Cthulhu (2014)

Everybody wants Riley (or R’lyeh?) because she has not only an impressive personality, she is also the Callgirl that Cthulhu wants as a mother for his avatar on earth. Inspired by H. P. Lovecraft. 92min imdb

Movie 89min

Trailer

Recap:

What people want: the artist Dexter wants that very special escort lady, the cultist wants the very same escort lady for a ritual to bring Cthulhu to earth, and the professor wants Dexter to forge a nameless tome (the Necronomicon?) to prevent the ritual from working.

So much for the plot. The first review I read was quite salty, claiming that the movie was not true to the spirit of Lovecraft. This is true in so far that it doesn’t show the undepictable, it doesn’t give you a glimpse of the sheer size and emptiness of space and the futility of human existence, it doesn’t even show things so beyond the capacity of the human brain that the beholder will inevitably go insane (good thing, too).

Instead, it’s a parody, it’s loud and fast and trashy. However, this parody was clearly made by people who have read and love their Lovecraft. It wasn’t made with much of a budget and it wasn’t made by the most skilled movie makers, but it was made with diligence and with so much love for the spoofed that I even call it a hommage. Just look at the details: two important characters in this movie are Erica Zann (a musician) and Richard “Rick the dick” Pickman, the condom brand is “Deep Ones”, the febreeze is “Cool Air” and the viagra is “Celephais”.

This is a perfect example for a very good movie. It may not be great, but it’s so much better than just good. What bothers me is that the version I watched is shorter than the official length according to imdb. It may very well be that some of the funnier and/or grosser takes were edited. That would be a shame. But even this version is very good.

Adventures of Power (2008)

Underdog comedy about air drumming as a metaphor for life. With a guest appearance by Neil Peart (1952-2020) as himself. 89min imdb

For starters:

For laughs:

Movie, 89min (VPN:USA)

Trailer

Recap:

On the day they buried his mother, Power had a date with his fate: he turned on the radio, and they were playing Tom Sawyer.

Roughly 20 years later he is a hapless air drummer, and moments before the important strike in the copper mine starts, he loses his job, disappointing his father again. Now that nothing holds him back anymore, he goes to Mexico and competes with the toughest of illegal underground air drummers. Since he is an autodidact, he has never seen anybody anybody play air drum before (very much like Jeff Healey never saw anyone play the guitar), so he doesn’t know about the importance of the stool, and yet he manages manages to stand his ground, drawing the attention of Carlos who leads the best air drum group of New Jersey. So Power goes to Newark, where he falls in love with the deaf daughter of a once-rocknroll-slut-now-religious-nutcase woman. And together with Carlos and his team he prepares for an air drumming contest in New York with a cash prize of $2000.

Did you know that Phil Collins actually once did something right? I didn’t. For me he always was just the ugly little dwarf from the bubblegum pop music charts. So I was wrong. I ignored a song of his which is the soundtrack for one of the most important and most impressive sequences in this movie, and it works. Oh yes it does.

Personally I didn’t expect much of this movie. Of course I’ve spent a fair share of my life with playing air guitar, bass, drums and vocals. But when I heard many years back that there is an annual air guitar world championship I was not amused. My thought was that this kind of competition was something for losers like athletes or chart musicians, but surely not for those who rock. But this movie simply is too good to nag about that kind of thing. As a matter of fact, air drumming here is some metaphorical hyperbole analogy or however they call it. This movie is about the important things in life, and it rocks. If you don’t love it, if you maybe don’t even understand it, well that means that you just don’t rock.

King Of The Zombies (1941)

Silly caribbean adventure with zombies, voodoo, hypnosis and what have you. With Mantan Moreland and Madame Sul-Te-Wan 67min imdb

Recap:

So there is a storm, and a plane lands on a mysterious island. The pilot and his two passengers find first a graveyard and then a manor where they can spend the night. Then, a whole lot happens, because the house is full of secret passages, undead zombies, a hypnotised woman, a love interest, a voodoo priestess and an american admiral who was imprisoned by the master of the house who claims to be austrian but really is a german spy.

Well, all in all the movie is rather so-so. It’s creepier and zombier than, say, Revolt Of The Zombies, but that doesn’t say much. And it’s not so much a semicreepy horror movie but rather a semifunny comedy. The one who keeps the story going is Mantan Moreland, a skilled comedian who plays the ungrateful part of the superstitious black coward as a comic relief for the white 1940s moviegoers, but the more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that he is the most sympathetic zombie that I’ve seen so far. But I don’t know whether that’s reason enough to watch this movie.

Related movie:

Dark Star (1974)

Classic SF comedy by co-author, actor and production designer Dan O’Bannon and co-author, composer and director John Carpenter. 73min imdb

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Recap:

The Dark Star has been scouting space for many years now, and the crew has become quite weary. Boiler and Doolittle are still doing their job, though Doolittle misses his surfboard. Talbot has retreated to the observation dome, meditating all day. Pinback is not even an astronaut, he is on board only by accident. Talking bout accidents: commander Powell is cryogenic hibernation, they have lost their complete supply of toilet paper, and the AI of one of the bombs is getting stubborn.

This was a college movie in the first place, probably one of the best college movies ever made. It caught the attention of a movie producer who ordered additional footage to pad the runtime for a theatrical release, and the rest is history. Now it’s not only a top notch comedy but also an artifact of historic value because it started the career of Dan O’Bannon and John Carpenter.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Terror Toons (2001)

Two cartoon slashers invade the real world. 79min imdb

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Recap:

The parents have gone to a wedding and leave the twenty somethings home alone. The one with the huge production values watches a DVD called Terror Toons, the other is having a full blown orgy, complete with wine cooler and strip ouija.

Wonder why? There is nudity or sex in this movie, and its title gives away that the slashers come not from the ouija board but from the DVD.

Well, if you haven’t got a budget you can still use your skills, work with what you’ve got and create a a small but precious gem. Or, especially if you’re not so skilled, you can go all over the top and create something new, never seen before, that finds its audience because it stands out by standing alone. That’s what they were going for here, and I really wanted them to succeed. But alas, some filmmakers seem to use the lack of budget as an excuse for not even trying. WTF! When you ain’t got real actors it’s twice as important to work with your cast, when you waste big portions of the budget on a porn star it’s important to have nudity and sex in the movie, and if you want to make a comedy by no means you should ever even consider to start filming before you have funny script.

The one thing that speaks for this movie are the slashers Doctor Carnage and Max Assassin. They are new and never seen before, and I like the way they go over the top. They are the reason why I give generous 3*, but don’t let your hopes get too high, because in the end the film is really not good.

⭐⭐⭐

Pastor Shepherd (2010)

Heartwarming comedy about a loser who deserves some luck. With Danny Trejo. 91min imdb

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Review:

Shepherd looks like the child of love of Jason Bateman and Norman Bates, a shockingly normal face with a grin that hurts to even look at, one cannot even start to imagine just how much it must hurt to display it while walking from door to door telling people that you want to freeze dry their pets and then returning home to a mom whose vital functions are reduced to donating money to TV scammers. Since he is too shy to talk to Danny Trejo’s beautiful daughter, the only thing that gives meaning to his life is what he does alone in the shed, often using a chainsaw.

It’s nice every now and then to discover a movie that just tells a story that’s worth watching. I don’t know what the official definition of the term “feelgood movie” is, but I use the term for comedies that do not pile jokes upon jokes, it may be that you don’t laugh out loud too often, but in the end, well, you just feel good. Pastor Shepherd is a good example.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Marx Brothers 9: At The Circus (1939)

In their 9th movie the Marx Brothers try to recover the hero’s stolen money. 87min imdb

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Review:

So there is this dude who has 10k Dollars that he needs to make his circus dream come true, but he tgets knocked down from behind and robbed. The Marx Brothers try to solve the case, but fail. So instead, Groucho goes for Margaret Dumont for some gold digging.

Yes, it’s true, this not one of the better Marx movies, and of course there are WAY! too many musical numbers which all suck except for those three with one of the Brothers in them. And yet: it’s fun. This movie does not reinvent the wheel but it takes you for a joyride.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Monsturd (2003)

Inane comedy with an ass full of poopoojokes. 81min.

Rotten Tomatoes

(Movie not available? Set your VPN to a server in Germany)

Review:

So there is this serial killer on the run. The cops hunt him down in the sewers and shoot him. But while he is dying he is bitten by a radioactive piece of shit, which turns him into a Monsturd.

For reasons unknown to man, this movie is full of poop jokes. Maybe it is because this movie is basically about a little girl telling her dad a goodnight story, which is a smart move in my eyes because it explains and justifies just how immature the whole thing is. Also there are at least two totally hilarious scenes which are about dumb cops instead about poop.

So all in all I must say that this an extremely decent 3* movie. If you are too mature to stand a few poop jokes, then skip it. If not, then don’t.

⭐⭐⭐

The Claire Wizard Thesis (2018)

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Parody of found footage movies

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Review:

So big brother David is shooting a documentary and is making fun of little brother Jacob who is shooting a remake of the Blair Witch Project and is a total prick.

That’s the story, basically. This is a parody of found footage films shot as the making of of a found footage film. The movie has its moments, thinking about it I must say that some bits are just great, and it’s certainly the best found footage movie I’ve ever seen. But most of the time I just miss things like story and sympathetic characters.

By the way: all the time I was hoping that director Ishak Issa would play the part of Jacob, but was pretty sure at the same time that he was David. So it was quite interesting to watch the end credits and find out which character he actually played.

One last thing: I can relate to most characters in this movie because I’m a wannabe myself. A wannabe critic, that is.

⭐⭐⭐

Bite Me! (2004)

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Nice little trash movie with Erin Brown (Misty Mundae)

Review:

The Go-Go-Saurus is a bar with exotic dancers, and it’s quite broke. A drug deal might save the place, but with the weed there come huge spiders that suck blood just like ticks. Getting rid of them turns out to be not easy, especially since everybody, the manager, the girls and even the exterminator, are quite inapt.

Fun little trash movie with Erin Brown (Misty Mundae). What more can I say? It’s not Citizen Kane, it’s entertaining. Very entertaining.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Marx Brothers 13: Love Happy (1949)

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At last: Harpos long awaited solo movie, co-starring Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Marilyn Monroe and Raymond Burr.

No trailer, try Marilyn Monroe’s screen debut instead

Rotten Tomatoes

Review:

Harpo works as caterer for a musical production. Chico is on the crew because he knows how to handle the man who wants money for the sets and costumes. Groucho is after the hot woman who is after the royal Romanoff diamonds, which are hidden in a can of sardines which Harpo stole.

Of course, Duck Soup was better, and so were, I assume, the even older movies that I didn’t see. Yaddayaddayada. I know that kind of talk because I used to talk in this fashion myself. But that was long ago, I have seen a ton of other movies since, and after rewatching it now I must say: wow! Funny! Entertaining!

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Trivia: They say that Harpo wanted to make a solo movie, but Chico had to be in it because of his gambling depts, and the investors insisted on Groucho. Also in the cast: not so important actors like Raymond Burr and Marilyn Monroe.

John Cleese On How To Irritate People (1968)

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A pre-python TV show with John Cleese

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Rotten Tomatoes

Review:

This is an evening TV show with John Cleese, a nice assortment of sketches. It’s funny, yes, but when half of the Monty Python crew is gathered, we are used to a little more than just “it’s funny, yes” (you are not? Well I am, spoiled little brat that I am). All in all it’s a good but rather conventional 70s TV show. But hey, this is from 1968, so who knows, maybe they were ahead of their time then already? Anyways, I list and link it here because you know what we fanboys are like. What if this was some lost media stuff where Cleese, Booth, Palin and Chapman are doing these TV sketches long before the Flying Circus? I sure would die to see it. So I think it’s better that is NOT lost. Gentlepeople, I present you what may not be the greatest show in the world, but I guarantee you that it’s a highly interesting historical document and about 100 times funnier than anything that Adam Sandler or Kevin James could ever come up with.

⭐⭐⭐

The Orange Man (2015)

96min

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Comedy about a bunch of losers who are stalked by a slasher with a hook and sack of oranges.

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Review:

Back in the 80s there was a farmer who went from door to door, trying to sell his oranges, and as he didn’t succeed, he went on a killing spree. In the present days he is still not caught, and we see businessman Gerald announcing how he will run over an orange orchid with a bulldozer. But since his wife wants a divorce, he decides to make a trip with his bestest buddies who, each in their own way, are as miserable as he is.

Yes, since the slasher (apart from a sack of oranges) uses a hook, it’s a bit like I Know What Napoleon Dynamite Did Last Summer, but I’m okay with that. This is a microbudget movie done with love and diligence, and I appreciate that very much. Also, I ‘m a big boy now, and I’ m not going to complain like “bohoo, there’s not enough blood in it for a slasher movie” or “bohoo this comedy is so inane with its abundance of pee (and peeping) jokes.”

No, this is not a bad movie, and if you watch it you will find that, whether you like it or not, at least it’s not much like other movies that you’ve seen before. This is why I give it three stars, and i tell you why I don’t give it four: I think that the script would have needed much more effort. So we think that Gerald will meet the Orange Man because he is a destroyer of orange orchids, but then the story switches to buddy movie mode. When then the friends team up against the lover of Gerald’s wife, we (or at least I) think “whoa, this is some weird film about friendship.” But eventually the film decides to be full throttle nihilistic. Speaking strictly for me: I prefer scripts with a little more coherence, and while I think that nihilism in real life is rubbish, I also think that nihilism in art is valid and can be quite cool if it’s done properly, it just doesn’t tickle my fancy too much.

⭐⭐⭐

Detective Heart Of America: The Final Freedom (2015)

74min

(VPS:D)

Sound

English

Subs

None

Puppet animation movie by Jason Steele about a plaster eagle who works as an detective.

no trailer