Comedy, Reviews
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The Stoker (Kochegar)
17 May 2013
A stange, dark and clever Russian black comedy with an unexpectedly forceful moral message
Edinburgh’s beloved Filmhouse cinema has chosen an unusual and intriguing curio for its first release as a distributor. Directed by the prolific Alexey Balabanov - known for his unflinching but darkly comic fables of the Russian criminal underworld…
'The Comedy Explorers' Alternative Comedy Club' and 'Comedy and Cocktails'
15 May 2013
Jay Richardson talk us through the hot new comedy clubs in Glasgow
The current slow-down in gig attendances, suggesting even comedy isn't recession-proof, puts new nights under pressure to be distinctive. Two ambitious ventures launched in Glasgow recently take diametrically-opposed approaches to persuading punters…
Billy Liar
19 Apr 2013
John Schlesinger’s classic British New Wave comedy has a warm and light touch
Not many classic films have also enjoyed success as a book, play, sitcom and musical. It’s testament to the timelessness of Keith Waterhouse’s source novel, about a 19-year-old lad who ‘can’t say two words to anybody without telling a lie’, that the…
I’m So Excited
18 Apr 2013
Pedro Almodóvar returns to the brassy style of his earlier films
The new comedy from beloved Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar begins with a message assuring us that the film ‘is fiction and fantasy, and has no connection to reality’; a provocation to assume the opposite is true if ever there was one. But while there…
Bernie
18 Apr 2013
Jack Black and Shirley Maclaine star in this nicely-mounted but ultimately oddly bloodless comedy
We’re all familiar with the clear-cut outrage that follows a heinous crime perpetrated by a dark, twisted monster against a dewy innocent – but what if it’s the other way round? What if someone hugely popular does something terrible to someone widely…
Scary Movie 5
18 Apr 2013
Lazy, limp and humourless addition to the series
Blame Airplane! It was a fast, funny and inventive piss take of disaster movies. Unfortunately everyone who has tried to rip off the formula in the modern era shoots so low. Admittedly the first Scary Movie (2000) had a few ‘I can’t believe they did…
21 and Over
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18 Apr 2013
A lazy and conformist comedy that attempts (and fails) to ape The Hangover's success
Having hit the jackpot with their script for The Hangover, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore attempt to repeat their success with 21 and Over. Sadly, the duo’s directorial debut proves to be a gamble that doesn’t pay off. The night before his big medical…
Jo Caulfield presents... The Speakeasy - Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh, Tue 9 Apr 2013
16 Apr 2013
This spoken word/comedy evening presents a more easy-going, relaxed alternative to stand-up shows
‘They don’t like this kind of thing on a Friday night at Jongleurs.’ It’s a statement that could apply to just about every act on The Speakeasy bill, but it’s spoken by Andrew Learmonth, a comedian who has just revealed the story of his prematurely-born…
Love is All You Need
16 Apr 2013
A syrupy, genre-led romcom-lite starring Pierce Brosnan and Trine Dyrholm
Love, apparently, is all you need, which could be why Susanne Bier has forgotten about nuance, character, wit and candour. Expectations were high for the Danish director of 2010’s Oscar-winning In a Better World, but she has let herself down with this…
Papadopoulos & Sons
28 Mar 2013
Forgettable, unconvincing Anglo-Greek comedy drama starring Stephen Dillane
Tales of black sheep family members losing the strictures of stuffy respectability have been legion and the forgettable Papadopoulos & Sons has nothing fresh to enliven the familiar formula. Predictable plotting, stilted performances and…
Tickling Jock
19 Mar 2013
Billy Connolly, Ronnie Corbett and Stanley Baxter feature in this comedic portrait exhibition
It would be thoroughly glaikit for anyone to criticise Tickling Jock for not including much in the way of the modern Scottish comedian. For this is very much a portrait of the way our nation’s funny men and witty women once were: knee-deep in the music…
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
13 Mar 2013
Laughs are lacking in this tale of rival Vegas magicians, starring Steve Carell and Jim Carrey
After competing dramas about competing magicians (The Prestige and The Illusionist) comes the same idea played for broad laughs. Given that Vegas-style showmanship is ridiculously campy anyway, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone has a large…
Identity Thief
12 Mar 2013
Solid comedy road movie with Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman
‘You follow the rules? How’s that workin’ out for you?’ bawls Melissa McCarthy’s shameless criminal when straight-laced accountant Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman) catches up with her free-spending ways with his money. Seth Gordon’s follow up to…
The Guilt Trip
4 Mar 2013
Heartfelt mother-son road trip movie starring Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen
Teaming Barbra Streisand with Seth Rogen promises a road trip worth avoiding; setting the diva who produced and starred in a slew of vanity projects including The Prince of Tides and The Mirror As Two Faces opposite the shambolic stoner from Knocked Up…
Blancanieves
26 Feb 2013
1920s set silent take on the Snow White story, with seven bullfighting dwarves
It’s going to be difficult to get through a review of Blancanieves without mentioning The Artist, so let’s get it out of the way now. Both films are European, black and white, reduced format silent films in romanticised 20th century period settings.
Much Ado About Nothing
26 Feb 2013
This lo-fi project from Joss Whedon is an elegant adaptation of the Shakespearean play
It’s not classed as one of Shakespeare's hard-to-categorise 'problem plays', but there’s plenty that’s problematic in this mid-period comedy. The traducement, rejection and humiliation of the innocent Hero, for instance – and her capitulation thereto…
Alex Horne presents The Horne Section
26 Feb 2013
Horne takes his jazz/comedy hybrid to the airwaves of Radio 4
For some onlookers, musical comedy is still perched on the lowest rung of the funny ladder despite the sterling efforts of Bill Bailey, Tim Minchin and Flight of the Conchords in changing those perceptions. Known mainly for hi-tech stand-up that hinges…
Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
25 Feb 2013
Unsatisfying horror, comedy and action combo starring Gemma Arterton and Jeremy Renner
Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is the dunderheaded English-language debut of Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola (best known for highly entertaining Nazi zom-com Dead Snow). Despite a promisingly (and characteristically) daft concept it's a film that lacks…
The Bugle - Podcast of biting political humour
25 Feb 2013
Sharp, incisive satirical podcast from Andy Zaltzman and John Oliver
‘Some people were born to create this technology,’ declared John Oliver to his old shock haired sparring partner Andy Zaltzman at the start of The Bugle’s last weekly edition, ‘and others were born to piss it up the wall. You and I were picked by Team B…
Spring Breakers
22 Feb 2013
Harmony Korine's ludicrously bad drama about four girls gone wild on spring break
Incoherent, brash and self-consciously 'arthouse' in execution, Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers is an intriguing cinematic spectacle: an awful film that seems aware – nay, aggressively boastful – of its own awfulness. It follows a quartet of…
The History of Future Folk
22 Feb 2013
Charming but slight sci-fi music comedy in the vein of Flight of the Conchords
Cosmic-folk twosome Future Folk started life on the underground New York music scene, playing acoustic guitar-and-banjo tunes with sci-fi lyrics to crowds of bemused punters. The gentle whimsy and a focus on music rather than jokes puts their foot…
John Dies at the End
20 Feb 2013
Self-conciously bizarre cult comedy offering from director Don Coscarelli
Penned by Senior Editor at Cracked.com David Wong (real name Jason Pargin), the 2009 novel John Dies at the End was a comedy-horror tornado of cultural references, paranormality and winking self-awareness. Cult filmmaker Don Coscarelli (Phantasm, Bubba…
Vinyl
19 Feb 2013
Clunky Welsh comedy starring Keith Allen and Phil Daniels as ageing punk rockers
This clunky punk rock comedy from Welsh filmmaker Sara Sugarman has its heart in the right place, but despite a decent ‘inspired by real events’ premise and some solid performances, it’s crippled by a half-baked script and a reliance upon…
Populaire
15 Feb 2013
Immaculately styled French period romcom starring Déborah Francois and Romain Duris
This immaculately styled French period romantic comedy signals its pedigree with a colourful cartoon credit sequence reminiscent of cute and kookie Hollywood comedies circa the 1950s and 60s. And in fact, co-writer and director Régis Roinsard’s feature…
Run for Your Wife
11 Feb 2013
Hopelessly dated and poorly executed comedy starring Danny Dyer
This comprehensively cack-handed adaptation of the long-running West End stage sex comedy will have all but the most thick of skin and dim of humour running from the cinema as though their very lives depended up on it. Co-director and screenwriter Ray…
