comedy
First, think of the most overused plot of an espionage action thriller. Throw in a young, rebellious kid who dares to walk in his father’s once-proud footsteps. Finally, mix in a cartoonish super-villian with unbelievable plans to destroy the world and a super-secret spy agency that is at their wit’s end in their attempts to stop him.
What We Do In The Shadows is a mockumentary that expertly takes the piss out of the currently very glamorous pop culture status of the historic monster, the vampire. It initially features four vampires who live together in a flat in Wellington, New Zealand. All have arrived there for different reasons:
In an era when Hollywood is running out of ideas more than any other previous point in its century-long history, the big studios’ desire to unnecessarily remake everything grows even more unwelcome. It’s not that good remakes can’t be made (after all, The Departed, The Fly and a Fistful of Dollars all exist), but modern audiences are so skeptical of remakes that they tend to stay away in droves. The remakes only seem to happen presumably so that the studios can maintain the copyright to the originals and continue to make heaps of money.
Pretty much every big screen reboot of a beloved childhood TV show has been terrible. Yet for people with a certain nostalgia for it, they will end up loving it regardless of quality. I never watched the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when I was growing up, which is why I can recognize that the recent Michael Bay-produced reboot is terrible, but a worrying amount of people I’m friends with can’t see it as anything other than an extension of what they loved when they were younger.
The only thing missing from Dreamworks’ new film Penguins of Madagascar is sanity. But we don’t go to watch a film about characters set in the Madagascar universe expecting logic. So when an octopus yells at his harmoniously compliant servants:
It seems to happen far too often: A new, original comedy premieres, to mostly good reviews, and so the studio decides to seize on the original’s success and create a sequel. And the sequel is not nearly as good as the first.
Michael Keaton is one of those “If only he was given a chance, he could have done great things” type of guys. Edward Norton is one of those “If he could just suck it up and take other people’s advice he could be one of the biggest stars in the world” type of guys. This is no secret to us and it is certainly no secret to Alejandro González Iñárritu, who takes full advantage of our outside knowledge to create the only slightly twisted reality of Birdman.
What do Fleetwood Mac, surgical mutilation and a delightfully chubby Haley Joel Osment have in common? Along with a recurring erotic nightmare of mine, Kevin Smith’s new film Tusk. Based on an episode of Smith’s long-running “SModcast,” Tusk tells the story of podcaster Wallace Bryton (Justin Long) who embarks into Manitoba on a quest for new material.
Everybody takes break-ups differently. Some people get a dog, others will join the gym, and a few people fall into complete melancholy. The short film A New Man is a study of the third result.
One of the best qualities you find in the cinephile world is a film that doesn’t take itself so seriously. Truly, what better way to do that than with puppets? Drugged up puppets that rob convenience stores.
I am a member of a generation that covets nostalgia more than any that has come before it. The Internet allows us to relive our childhood memories whenever we wish. It can be comforting to look back at the cartoons you watched as a kid or be reminded of that candy you loved that has since been discontinued.
Wes Anderson can be an acquired taste. Settling on gathering enjoyment from his films can come after much deliberation as to whether he’s serious about the utterly finicky nature he employs in his chosen colour palettes, set construction, camera movements and scrupulous plot details. But his films carry far more value than the kind of hipster magnetism that seemingly oozes out of them.
We’re talking about the 2004 movie Mean Girls – let’s discuss how a real girl becomes a mean girl in real life and what happens to them later on.