Specialised Drollery

Alan Arkin's directorial debut Little Murders is a savagely dark comedy about romance and the vapidity of modern life set during a crime riven 70's New York. Elliot Gould stars as a hollow, nihilistic photographer who is wooed/coerced into marriage by a tradition-tied singleton but their burgeoning, plasticky life together is perpetually tested by the casual violence rife in the city. There's a decidedly manic energy to proceedings and it’s bitter script gives each character plenty of er, colour and lots of room for big, theatrical swipes at the contemporary mores of the day. An impressive, sadly neglected satire that has a deliciously dark edge.

Crispin Glover, professional odd bod, makes an early appearance in the barmy road trip/buddy comedy Rubin and Ed. When the reclusive Rubin is recruited by a failing salesman to attend a culty conference event he decides to bury his dead, frozen cat in the desert instead and an uneasy, unusual friendship blossoms between the two flawed morons. Glover and Hessemen put in bravura performances as the mismatched duo and their peculiar, highly amusing adventures have a surprisingly poignant effect despite the all the bizarre-ness. Another forgotten little comedy gem with a script to die for.

Doltish Double

Seth Macfarlane peddles his particular brand of shtick onto the big screen with the foul mouthed fable Ted. A young boy's wish comes true when his ursine companion comes to life but 20 years later the bear has some nasty habits, a potty mouth and seems to be dragging his friend down. Wahlberg's acting isn't much better than the CGI bear's and though there's a couple of decent laughs the script consistently aims low and I found it a depressingly tawdry watch. Probably quite enjoyable when drunk.

There's  a few more dull witted chuckles in 321...Frankie Go Boom but it has a meanness of spirit that really shouldn't be encouraged. Chris Dowd stars as an unrepentant bunghole who thrives on humiliating his brother on camera and on his return to the family home post rehab he recommences the torture despite being a fully grown adult. Lurching from jape to jape the script never really picks up momentum and it, like Ted, prefers the low hanging fruit of pratfalls and crudity to crafting any decent character comedy. Instantly forgettable nonsense with sour note.

Rummy & Tricky

Richard Lewis stars as a recovering alcoholic in the film Drunks. Set predominantly during an AA meeting our protagonist is asked to retell his saga of booze, pills and heartache but the effort leads him to flounce out and falling with great gusto off the wagon. The script is painfully honest/earnest and there's plenty of talent on display including Faye Dunaway, Amanda Plummer and Sam Rockwell but it all feels a little uneven as the film flits between Lewis' quite tedious, shouty lapse and the remaining addicts quiet recounting of their individual tales of woe. The film has, I guess, quite admirable intentions but it doesn’t exactly make for great entertainment.

Michelle Williams and Kirsten Dunst star as a pair of ditzy hippy chicks in the Presidential comedy Dick. After straying during a tour of the Whitehouse the duo befriend Richard Nixon and slowly, unknowingly become involved in the Watergate scandal. This is goofy stuff that’s more charming than funny but it’s nicely spun into the actual historical facts of Nixon’s downfall and the endearing leads are supported by a number of surprising cameos playing the key figures.

Bitter Belly Laughs

Peter O’Toole struts his stuff as an upper class lunatic shepherded towards the House of Lords after his father's death in the irreverent, blunderbuss satire The Ruling Class. O'Toole's family are exasperated when he's nominated as the sole heir of the late Earl's fortune and when he turns up, asylum fresh, yet still convinced he's the big JC, his relatives develop a cunning plan to resolve the situation. With O’Toole in fine form and some excellent support from Sim and Lowe this is a gloriously scathing, dark swipe at our beloved class system that isn’t afraid to be more than a little silly. It’s long but worth every minute of your time.

Apparently Blake Edwards drew on his own ambivalent experiences in Hollywood for his cynical, lolloping satire S.O.B. A celebrated director is driven to suicide after his first flop but after his friends rally his spirits he embarks on a foolish re-edit to rescue the picture. Julie Andrews, Edwards’ actual wife of the time, leads the cast as a starlet smashing her wholesome image with her first nude scene and she’s joined in the fun by a bevy of famous faces including Vaughn, Loggia, Swit, Hagman and William Holden depicting a slew of hanger-ons, shady agents, dodgy docs and rapacious producers. It’s not nearly as focussed as Ruling Class and Mulligan’s central performance is, ironically the weakest but it’s acerbic script is sharp and funny.

Horror Throng

Brit horror/comedy Cockneys vs Zombies is as basic as the title suggest and it’s best bits are crammed into it’s trailer sbut it sill managed to raise a chuckle or two. Builders pop a sealed tomb and inadvertently unleash a zombie outbreak on the East End sending a bunch of bungling bank robbers battling across town to rescue their Grandad who's holed up in a scheduled-for-demolition old folks home. There’s a few nice chompy bits but the stronger, better acted and funnier OAP's segments are secondary to a predictable and cliched main story that has little imagination or charm. Half decent.

British 80's cult horror, Xtro, is just as flawed but at least has the decency to be quite, quite bonkers. When a UFO buzzes a remote cottage and abducts a middle class dad his traumatised son grows up with his mum and her yank boyfriend. When hubby strolls back into their lives a few years later, seemingly sans memories but with extra odd, his presence seems to unlock strange abilities in the kid and a merry, icky rampage is excreted. This is low budget stuff that's badly shot and poorly scripted/acted but it does mine a thick vein of gooey, quite repugnant body horror that's interspersed with some genuinely barmy deaths.

Comic Contests

Bruce Dern smirks and slimes his way through the beauty pageant comedy Smile released back in 1975. As the ladies arrive in town for the judging, Dern, playing a local business man, revels in his role as organiser/judge and finds himself drawn to one of the pretty younglings, ignorant of the venom and heartbreak that’s happening backstage. Wonderfully acted and with a script that disguises it’s considerable with a light and breezy atmosphere. A brilliant yet neglected slice of seventies satire.

Butter doesn’t have the same bite as Smile but it’s a fairly reasonable swipe at another Amurican pageant tradition, butter carving. A  wholesome, vacuous couple dominate the local competition but when a little black girl and stripper enter the fray things get personal and new heights/lows are breached. Jennifer Garner takes the lead and is joined by Jackman and the gorgeous  Olivia Wilde but their efforts are mostly wasted on the thin script and a cheesey side story.

Electoral Dysfunction

Robert Redford is approached to run against a long standing Senator in the political drama soft satire The Candidate from 1972. As the reluctant nominee hits the campaign trail the idealism and values he started with are slowly eroded as his chances improve and real power comes close to hand. Nicely acted by Redford and Peter Boyle this bitter, sharp swipe at the Amurican electoral system has a nuance that could be mistaken for understatement these days but it's a fine, depressingly prescient film that deserves a lot more attention.
40 years later and there's little if any understatement in The Campaign, a starry, comedy nutpunch towards Amurica"s current political idiocy. Zach Galifianakas, playing a campy tour guide, gets recruited by a pair of billionaires to unseat the incumbent oaf Will Ferrell and the race to Congress pushes both men to the brink, redefining classic political pandering and dirty, dirty tricks. Though it crumples into a typically cheesy finale there’s a surprising amount of bite to the comedy, hidden as it is beneath an avalanche of puerile and slapstick nonsense. Considerably better than expected.

Raving & Lunacy

Where's Poppa? is a darkish 70's comedy about a beleaguered son tending to his crabby, increasingly deranged aging mother. After falling in love in with her new nurse he decides to rid himself of his hectoring burden once and for all. The script although amusing relies too much on a glut of farcical situations for most of the laughs and though George Segal and Ruth Gordon put in reasonable performances the film's dark discontentment gets squandered somewhat. It's good but not really worth the effort required to find a copy.
Donald Sutherland and Gene Wilder perform double duties in the silly farce Start The Revolution Without Me. Set in pre revolution France the duo play a pair of muddled-at-birth twins, with one pair destined for penury and fecklessness while the other luxury and ruthlessness. A plot to murder the King reunites their fates in a madcap torrent of misunderstandings and slapstick antics. The comedy comes in all guises with pratfalls, satire and irreverence steeped in a quick but goofy wit that’s handled marvellously by the talented cast. Though it’s probably too silly for most it’s a nice little nugget of offbeat laughs.

Bartel's Twisted Past

Paul Bartel had a varied career as successful actor, writer and director. His 1972 debut behind the lens, Private Parts, is a sleazy black comedy which follows a virginal teenager fleeing her squat and into the care of a distant aunt who runs a decrepit hotel populated with a bunch of perverts and weirdos but as the young girl settles in, her attachment to a creepy photographer puts her in jeopardy. The acting is piss poor and there's barely enough comedy to justify it’s existence but it does have a sort of grubby charm and an enthusiasm to offend (even if it does seem tame by today’s standards) so it’s not a complete waste of time.
Eating Raoul followed a ten years later and is much more accomplished dish of bad taste chuckles. Bartel himself plays one half of a professional couple who come up with a unique method for funding the culinary ambitions however their peculiar plan becomes unstuck with the arrival of a young handsome confederate. The script is much tighter than Private P and despite the murderous lunacy of the main characters Bartel still, somehow, manages to elicit some sympathy. Sure it looks terrible and the shock has paled over the years but it’s a decent watch
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Capering Chucklers

Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn are at the top of their respective games in the charming comedy thriller, Foul Play, released in 1978. The Hitchcockian plot sees Hawn unwittingly embroiled in a preposterous goulash of murder, intrigue and albinos after coming into possession of a mysterious roll of film but luckily she has laid back police detective Chase in her corner. The blend of comedy and thriller is actually not bad and played, quite wisely, with tongue firmly planted in cheek but it's the excellent performances which make this fluff into something special and the two excellent leads are joined in the fun with some brilliant turns from Burgess Meredith & Dudley Moore.

Seems like Old times sees Hawn & Chase reunite a few years later in another comedy thriller this time from the pen of Neil Simon. This time it's Chase, playing a feckless author, who finds himself caught up in a miasma of crime and misunderstanding who turns to his beautiful ex wife for help, only to discover she's now married to the District Attorney who's trying to bring him to justice. The comic pair are joined by Charles Grodin in the fun and like Foul Play manage to lift this whimsical, farce from drifting into mediocrity and though it doesn't quite match the former in pace it's still an entertaining, undemanding piece of fluff.

Sellers Joy

Peter Sellers plays an Italian master thief in After the Fox written for stage and screen by Neil Simon and released in '66. Lured by an impending shipment of gold Sellers escapes from prison and teams up with his old crew and young carefree sister in a caper involving a visiting, failing Hollywood star, played by Victor Mature, and some naive villagers from a small coastal town. Mature's excellent, self parodying performance is matched by Sellers', who for once avoids the obvious national cliches, and as you'd expect with Simon holding the pen there's plenty of snappy banter and laughs from the get go. Sadly I found the finale a little underwhelming and it cast shadow over the previous fun and frolics, nevertheless a lesser Sellers is still worth 3 or 4 contemporary comedies so if you fancy a gust of light 60's farce it's worth catching.

In The Naked Truth Peter Sellers stars as a deviously twee Scottish TV personality who, like Terry Thomas and Shirley Eaton, are being blackmailed by a shady, supercilious tabloid editor. After joining forces they make increasingly deranged attempts to thwart his plans but never quite get it right. It's a lovely little, Ealing-eque farce that has plenty of great lines and laughs, all delivered by the excellent cast with an effortlessness that demonstrates their seasoned talents. Sellers gets an opportunity to don a number of disguises and flex his comic character muscles (as his wont) and it's to the credit of the rest of the cast that he never manages to outshine them. Another thoroughly enjoyable Sellers effort that's been unfortunately eclipsed by his prodigious successes elsewhere.

Sixty Eights

Joseph Losey's Secret Ceremony is a fraught, twisted melodrama bedecked with the talents of Liz Taylor, Robert Mitchum & Mia Farrow. Grieving the loss of her daughter, Taylor's whore befriends a recently orphaned teenager after an encounter on the bus and the pair develop an unnerving, fantastical relationship, each playing the 'role' of their lost loved who they happen to resemble. Cooped up together in the plush manor Farrow inherited, their intense bond is further complicated with the arrival of a predatory Robert Mitchum. This is a dark, wordy film about the dirty interpersonal webs we weave, tear at, then reweave and it's three leads, even Taylor, put in exceptional performances.

Otto Preminger's Skidoo is a big studio attempt to cater to 1968's acid crowd but mostly falls flat on it's face in a similar fashion to say, I Love You Alice B Toklas. An aging mobster, played by Jackie Gleason, is forced out of retirement to deal with an errant mobster by God, his eccentric kingpin and a mildly entertaining, faintly psychedelic caper ensues. Sporting a veritable panoply of stars including Groucho Marx, Slim Pickens & Burgess Meredith the comedy is inconsistent, plotting half baked and the LSD trip sequences so cliched and trite that it's immediately obvious that no-one involved had ever had a taste of the good stuff. A spectacular, craptastic failure.

Black & White Gold

Sullivan's Travels is a delightful Preston Sturgess movie about a Hollywood film maker who, bored with churning out frothy comedies, wants to change direction and adapt 'O Brother, Where Art Thou' a worthy, depression set drama. As he's never experienced poverty he decides to live like a hobo to gain some understanding (much to the consternation of his studio execs) and a light, rather lovely comedy roadtrip ensues. With a quick witted script and some fine acting from Veronica Lake and Joel McCrea as the pair of psuedo bums, Sturgess balances the laughs, a little romance and a few poignant lessons about life effortlessly into what is a thoroughly enjoyable film and probably one of the best films I've seen in ages.


Before The Third Man, Carol Reed & Graham Greene worked together to fashion a wonderfully poised thriller called The Fallen Idol released in 1948. The young son of an Ambassador is left in the company of the butler, Mr Baines, and his harsh housekeeper wife for a weekend and quickly becomes embroiled in a web of secrecy and witness to the eventual dissolution of their relationship. Beautifully shot and with taut, restrained performances from the adult cast the tension builds deliciously until the climax and a torrent of emotion is unleashed. This is an excellent thriller that's sadly over shadowed by the pairs subsequent success.

Lame Lessons

Juno Temple stars as the school bike in the 80's set, bittersweet comedy Dirty Girl. After getting busted down to remedial class, the louche protagonist befriends a chubby, closeted dweeb and the pair go on the lam with a bag of flour baby in vague search of her father. It's quite funny but it's the excellent performances from Temple, H. Macy and Jovovich that give it some depth and though the plot is remarkably predictable it develops an unexpected edge. Maybe with a new title, a couple more gags and a little more imagination with the plot this could've been great but as it is, it's just a moderately enjoyable peice of fluff.

Bad Teacher, unfortunately, has less laughs and fewer decent performances to lift it's humdrum plot beyond anything other than factory floor Hollywood dustbunny. Cameron Diaz does her best as a loafing high school teacher who decides to put some effort in to win an award so she can pay for a boob job and finds herself drawn to a new upbeat teacher played by empty eyed man-doll Justin Timberlake. It's not an awful premise but there's barely enough laughs for it to qualify as a comedy a shame as I suspect, originally, it had a darker, filthier tone that's been washed out the way.

Sporting Goods & Not So Goods

Paul Giamatti stars as a struggling lawyer/part time wrestling coach in the comedy Win Win from Thomas McCarthy, the director of The Station Agent. With his business on the verge of bankruptcy our protagonist decides to fleece an elderly client who's suffering from dementia and it looks like things are on the up when the clients grandson, on the run from a drunken mum, turns up and seems to be a wrestling prodigy. Much like his previous films there's an interesting, quiet blend of comedy and drama throughout and McCarthy's writing and direction continue to impress. The assembled cast are all on great form and though it's gentleness may not appeal to everyone it's has an intelligence and emotional maturity that's not that common in contemporary Amurican comedies.

And to emphasis my point take Goon for example a mildly amusing but thoroughly infantile comedy starring doofus for hire Sean Wilson Scott as a bouncer whose skill in punching faces lands him a place on the local ice hockey team. Cue a predictable rise to fame plot arc that's dutifully populated with thumbnail characters painted in fingerpaint colours by hamfisted actors. There's a couple of chuckles along the way I suppose and it's slapstick violence picks up some of the slack in the script (which veers between trite and knowing simplitude) but mostly this a basic, hollow shell of a film that hasn't enough laughs and even less plot or character. If you're looking for something dumb and mindless as the main character look no further.

Craic & Hack Jobs

Brendan Gleeson plays a bored, feckless Garda stuck in an Irish backwater in the dark comedy The Guard, The rural quiet is disturbed when some drug traffickers reconnoiter the area for a large delivery of product and the FBI send Don Cheadle to assist in their capture. Gleeson dominates the film with some brilliant one liners and his hilarious Churchill dog face but with Cheadle, Mark Strong and Liam Cunningham providing solid support and a surprising poignancy mixed through the script it's a thoroughly enjoyable romp.

Gleeson and Cunningham reunite in supporting roles in the Denzel/Reynolds spy thriller Safe House. A bored 'housekeeper' has his tedium shattered when a high value, treasonous agent is brought in for interrogation followed by a hit squad that'll do anything to stop him coughing up his info, the pair escap and a series of noisy flashy action sequences and stagey battle of wits ensue. Denzel phones in one of his competent but lackadaisical performances while Ryan tries too hard to convince as a cross eyed tough man and the script, plot and action are straight from Hollywood's factory floor - hardly worth bothering with.

Northern Delights

Norwegian Ninja is a very odd alt-history dramatisation of the life of a Norwegian politician/spy, Arne Treholt, who was convicted of treason for selling secrets to the KGB. In this whimsical, highly silly retelling of his story however he's a spiritually gifted leader of an anti-terrorist squad of Ninja warriors who'll fight anyone threatening the Norwegian way of life. Playing out like a cross between a Wes Anderson film and some sub par 80's actioner like No Retreat all festooned with some ironically bad special effects and retro stylings. It's quite an entertaining 80 mins, sure I probably only got 50% of the jokes and had never heard of the main character but if you're looking for something quirky and offbeat you could do a lot worse than this.

Kin Dza Dza! sees a mismatched pair of Moscovites get catapulted to the far side of the universe by a homeless man they tried to help one morning and struggle through a baffling series of adventures searching for a way home. The acting is pretty good and it's a surprisingly effective scifi comedy mash that manages to mix in plenty of satirical pokes at class and conformity all topped with a silly yet dry sense of humour. Like Ninja above there was a few laughs that were beyond me but it's a very funny, charming Soviet scifi.

Bobcat's Dogmatics

You might remember Bobcat Goldthwait as the mewling, addled gang leader from Police Academy 2 but since then he's been quietly forging a career writing and directing barbed, close to the knuckle indy satires. Sleeping Dogs was released a few years ago and went largely unnoticed probably due to it's er, distasteful premise however it's a funny and quite touching rom-com. Cajoled by her fiance a young woman shares her dark secret, that one bored night she gave oral pleasure to her pet dog perhaps unsurprisingly it doesn't take long for her life to get turned upside down in the ensuing turmoil and recriminations. A surprisingly mature script keeps the film from sinking into John Waters territory and there's enough laughs to sweeten the salty brine of social awkwardness that soaks through all the wonderful performances.


Goldthwait's most recent offering, God Bless America, is a clunking hammerblow to the nutsack of contemporary Amurica and it's moronic media virus. After a thoughtful office worker gets fired and receives a terminal diagnosis he snaps and starts a violent rampage to lessen his country's burden of noisy idiots starting with a 16 year old reality TV starlet. There's plenty of Network-ish rantings peppering the blood letting and though I'm onboard with the cultural stupefaction invective the laughs just weren't there and it falters in the final third. Still it's quite enjoyable, kind of like Natural Born Killers mashed with Idiocracy.

Allegorical Frippery

A pair of young men escape their dreary lives and become talented gunslingers in the Rock N Roll, Acid(ish) Western, Zachariah. Don Johnson & John Rubenstein's friendship becomes strained as their notoriety increases and their divergent, barmy experiences shape them into mirror images of one another and an final confrontation becomes inevitable. There's some great tunes from Country Joe et al and nice period visuals which help flesh out the nonsense but it's essentially a diet version of El Topo festooned with ham fisted, cheap symbolism and a few laughs. Still I liked it and I'm quite surprised it's not received more attention.

I'm not really sure what to make of Rhinoceros, starring Gene Wilder & Zero Mostel. Filmed as part of the American Film Theatre series and based on a play by Eugen Ionesco this is a seriously odd little fable about one man's stand against a citywide tide of metamorphoses from man into Rhino. Wilder puts in a decent performance as the boozy office clerk who withstands the change but it's Mostel's film with an amazing transformation from effete city gent to monstrous apartment trashing beast that single handedly rescues the film from it's obtuse purpose. I dunno it's quite funny in bits but with the budgetary constraints precluding any actual Rhino action and it's general atmosphere of hysteria obscuring any meaningfulness it was a little disappointing, especially so given the potency of the previous Wilder & Mostel feature. Apparently the play has a bit more substance behind nonsense.

Light Convention & Lively Stimulation

Ed Helms helms Cedar Rapids, an entertaining faux indie comedy about a sheltered, dorky salesman sent to represent his company at a Insurance convention. After a nervy start he slowly comes out of his shell and with some tutelage from a couple of convention veterans begins to live a fuller life but their rambunctious antics have unforeseen consequences. It's a light, amusing late coming of age film with plenty of charm and though the script could be a little funnier, maybe with a bit more of an edge it's really well acted with Helms ably supported by Anne Heche, John C Reilly and Isiah Whitlock Jnr.

Hysteria assembles a highly competent cast, including Jonathon Pryce, Rupert Everett & Maggie Gyllenhaal, for a frothy, comedic look at the invention of the vibrator. Set in the Victorian era, a young doctor joins a practice which specialises in the treatment of female hysteria through the er, digital realignment of the uterus, the popularity of the treatment leaves the doctor with a strained hand and he seeks help from his inventor friend. Beautifully produced and well acted there's plenty of laughs throughout though the inclusion of the political/social upheavals of the time dilute the chuckles towards the final act.