In films like 21 Grams, Biutiful, and Babel, he revels in the misery of his characters and then contrives to make them even more miserable. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of misery and pretentiousness in Birdman (which is subtitled The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) but its mostly psychosomatic—and often played for laughs, which is a new thing for Iñárritu.
The actors in each movie don’t have much to do, but at least one of these movies understands where its strength lies — in putting bodies in constant motion and thumbing its nose at the laws of physics.
For people that care about The Hangover canon, there are call backs to situations and characters from the first movie that remind us of headier times for the Wolfpack. The real mystery is how the most successful R-rated comedy franchise in history could tarnish its legacy in just two short years.
Ferrell plays another in a long line of his familiar type, the over-confident buffoon—this one owing a lot to his famous George W. Bush impression—while Galifianakis plays another effeminate weirdo with a fanny pack, so neither actor is really stretching.
It’s the dog days of summer as we talk about three movies that round out the summer movie season.
Two movies out now on Blu-ray and DVD highlight completely opposite ends of the production spectrum.
Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie opens today at Screenland Crossroads. The duo’s humor comes from their instinctual knowledge of how editing is used to manipulate the viewer and this is their first full-length feature film.
Here’s my video review of the Todd Phillips-directed comedy“Due Date” starring Zach Galifianakis and Robert Downey Jr. from KTKA-49. It takes a special kind of director to make Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis not funny and apparently, Todd Phillips is that director. From Phillips—the man who brought us the runaway surprise summer hit “The […]
Here is Eric’s review of “Dinner For Schmucks” for ABC KTKA-49. You can catch his reviews every Friday night on the 6pm news. Even though the new comedy “Dinner For Schmucks” is based on a positively rude French farce, director Jay Roach plays this American remake pretty safe. In fact, the tone never quite seems […]