Comedy
Marvelous and the Black Hole (2022)
Marvelous and the Black Hole is the most harmless movie that I’ve seen in a while. I was in a good mood watching it, and maybe that helped. Were I in a sour mood, it’s cuteness might have been galling. Given the right mood, it is one of those little movies that you just want to […]
Chariot (2022)
There is a line in Chariot that I think pretty much sums up the entirety of the film: “Surely, it had to mean something.” When the movie was over, this is what was on my mind. Chariot is a strange comedy blending science fiction and reincarnation with a lot of really fun and unique things strewn about, but […]
Win a Trip to Browntown (2022)
My dear reader, I come before you with a confession. I watched comedy Win a Trip to Browntown! . . . but I never finished it. I couldn’t. Life is short. I’ve got things to do. I stopped at about a buck-five with still 28 minutes left on the running time but there was a […]
7 Days (2022)
7 Days is a lovely romantic comedy that values its subject matter and pulls the blinders off of a tradition that most of us westerners are hard-wired to consider somewhat prehistoric. The subject: Arranged marriages, a phrase that, with a knee-jerk reaction, makes you think of child brides, patriarchal tyranny and mandated unions based on […]
8-Bit Christmas (2021)
Beyond my old standards, I guess I’ve reached the point at which I’ve stopped looking for the next big Christmas classic – that movie that will couch itself among my annual perennials like It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street and Elf and A Christmas Story and even Die Hard. You can’t force […]
Black Friday (2021)
It is hard to dismiss the horror-comedy Black Friday for ambition, however on the level of execution you admit to yourself that it never quite makes it to the winner’s circle. That’s too bad because a Christmas zombie picture featuring horror icons Devon Sawa and Bruce Campbell could and should be a lot better. It […]
Coming 2 America (2021)
I had a knee-jerk reaction going into Coming 2 America and it’s not without prior experience. Comedy sequels have a long-standing history of offering up less-than-nothing, from Ghostbusters II to Men in Black II to Revenge of the Nerds II to Home Alone 2 they’re almost always a hollow cash-grab, a cynical exercise in which […]
Unholy Relics: Appreciating the Goofy Charm of ‘Batman the Movie’ at 55
As a movie and as a TV series “Batman” belongs in a time capsule, not of Batman lore but of a loving tribute to the pop sensation of the swinging 60s. To watch it again after almost 50 years is to be reminded of a time when television – and for that matter pop culture […]