After his wife passes away, a Hasidic cantor enlists the aide of a community college biology teacher when he becomes obsessed with determining how long it will take her body to return to the earth. This movie is a very understated comedy. It's surprsingly clever and funny. It's wonderful to see Son of Saul's Geza Rohrig in something wacky and fresh. Matthew Broderick is absolutely hysterical. This is one zany buddy comedy! 5/5 |
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Toni Erdmann is a miracle. I went to see Toni Erdmann because I didn't feel like going to a sobfest, I wanted to laugh. I thought "a 3-hour German comedy? How could this possibly work?!" Let me just say, it worked. It really really worked. I can say with confidence that not only was Toni Erdmann 900 million times better than anything I could have imagined. I have also never laughed so hard at a German-anything before. This is a bizarre story about a goofy aging dad who goes to visit his daughter who lives and works in Romania. He creates a goofy character, Toni Erdmann, complete with nutty wig and silly teeth. And so, the daughter plays along halfway mortified. This film could have easily veered into cringe comedy territory. I loathe cringe comedy. I don't think humiliation is funny. Somehow, Toni Erdmann avoids meanness and sticks with silly fun. Without saying too much, Toni Erdmann is reminiscent of a Mike Leigh anti-farce. 5/5 Heavens to Betsy, this movie is hysterical. I'm no WOO girl, and never have been, but I did relate very much to the idea of being a total trainwreck... Trainwreck is the latest film from Judd Apatow of Bridesmaids, Knocked Up, and all the rest. The film was written by the very funny comedienne Amy Schumer. 'Tis the year of Schumer. Trainwreck is about a party girl, Amy, who doesn't believe in monogamy and doesn't really take anything in life very seriously...until she meets Bill Hader (playing a fancy sports doctor). It's Bill Hader, so, of course, she falls in love and learns to embrace monogamy...it's Bill Hader. This movie has a stellar cast. Stand up fans will be delighted to play spot the comic throughout. We're talking Colin Quinn (who is EXCELLENT), Dave Attell, Mike Birbiglia, Leslie Jones, Marina Franklin... Sports fans will be likewise delighted to spot LeBron James, and many other famous tall athletes, whom I couldn't identify if I tried. LeBron, by the way, is really really good! It's nice when an athlete can deliver his lines sounding like a real person talking. Good job, LeBron! My only issue with this film is that as a romantic comedy it does fall back on a lot of the old heteronormative 'monogamy is best' tropes. For this reason I can't give it a 5. Feminists might take issue with the cheer number at the end, but I liked it and think all movies should have a dance sequence. Honestly, I laughed so hard the whole row was shaking. 4/5 Spy is a good time. Melissa McCarthy is brilliant. Statham pulls out his best action movie persona and gets ridiculously silly. Not only is the main character a woman, the "bad guy" is a woman, and the side kick is a woman. A trifecta of lady awesomeness! Oh yeah, and Bobby Canavale is always great. Here he's as greasy as ever. Paul Feig FTW! 3.5/5 |
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