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Comedy and Reviews

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Cannes 2012: Holy Motors

Cannes 2012: Holy Motors

Hugely satisfying and inventive celebration of cinema from Leos Carax

(4 stars)28 May 2012

Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) is picked up by his driver Celine (Edith Scob) for a day’s work - 9 appointments that will take him across Paris and into the paths of an array of characters. If that sounds vague, it’s deliberate - to say anymore would…

What To Expect When You’re Expecting

What To Expect When You’re Expecting

A witless and bland work based on the pregnancy self-help book

(2 stars)23 May 2012

‘You don’t know what love is until you’ve wiped someone’s ass,’ offers one of the many baby-boomers in Kirk (Waking Ned, Everybody’s Fine) Jones’ multi-stranded adaptation of the bestselling self-help book about the dos and don’ts of pregnancy.

Births, Deaths and Marriages

Births, Deaths and Marriages

New radio sitcom from Alan Partridge regular David Schneider

(3 stars)22 May 2012

The old triumvirate of hatch, match and dispatch will surely prove fertile for the big comedic brain of David Schneider as he launches his new radio sitcom. Set in a Local Register Office, chief registrar Malcolm Fox (not Ian Rankin’s post-Rebus…

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

Crisp restoration of the 1940s satire by Powell and Pressburger

(5 stars)18 May 2012

Spry and delightful nearly 70 years on, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is one of many masterpieces from filmmaking virtuosos Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, collectively known as The Archers. Their fifth collaboration, from 1943, is an…

Moonrise Kingdom

Moonrise Kingdom

Wes Anderson's latest echoes his earlier triumphs, but breaks no new ground

(3 stars)17 May 2012

Wes Anderson’s seventh film feels like a Greatest Hits package. Which if you’re a Wes fan will make you very happy. Set on a New England island in the summer of 1965, the opening sequence of Moonrise Kingdom, with its incessant camera-pans around the…

The Dictator

The Dictator

Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest has moments of solid satire but still feels stale

(3 stars)11 May 2012

From the naked scrotum-in-the-face wrestling of Borat to the manifold outrages of Brüno, Sacha Baron Cohen is not a man overly acquainted with subtlety. His latest, The Dictator, drops the improvisational feel of those earlier films, but doesn’t lower…

A Fantastic Fear of Everything

A Fantastic Fear of Everything

Crispian Mills' directorial debut starts well but quickly loses pace

(3 stars)11 May 2012

A film by the former lead singer of Kula Shaker might not sound an appetising prospect. But before dismissing A Fantastic Fear of Everything, we should remember that Crispian Mills’ film pedigree is pretty spot-on. He is, after all, the son of Hayley…

Casa de mi Padre

Casa de mi Padre

Will Ferrell's Spanish-language comedy is at once unfunny and too silly to take seriously

(2 stars)11 May 2012

Funnyman Will Ferrell as a tough rancher in a violent Spanish-language Western? It could only be a joke, and that’s exactly what Case de mi Padre is, a ragged, silly spoof in the Airplane/Naked Gun mode. Unfortunately, as jokes go, it’s a not…

Dark Shadows

Dark Shadows

A fun, if forgettable vampire movie, starring Johnny Depp, Eva Green and Michelle Pfeiffer

(3 stars)10 May 2012

Like a kid who turns up late to a Halloween party, Tim Burton arrives with his latest, vampire movie Dark Shadows. After Twilight, 30 Days of Night and Let The Right One In, not to mention TV’s True Blood…aren’t fangs, dusty coffins and dissolving in…

Russell Kane - The Humorist

Russell Kane - The Humorist

A gory black comedy from the restless comic

(3 stars)24 Apr 2012

(Simon & Schuster) Anyone familiar with Russell Kane’s stand-up comedy won’t be surprised with his debut dip into literary fiction. The winner of the 2010 Edinburgh Comedy Award might be a restless spirit on stage, but his number one priority is the…

Jeff, Who Lives at Home

Jeff, Who Lives at Home

The Duplass Brothers' slacker comedy bears too much resemblance to its underachieving protagonist

(3 stars)18 Apr 2012

(15) 83mins No one would have believed in the last years of the 20th century that of all the stars to emerge from Judd Apatow’s extraordinary talent nursery Freaks and Geeks, the household name would end up being Jason Segel. He’s not as gorgeous as…

Outside Bet

Outside Bet

Low-budget British horse-racing comedy falls at the first hurdle

(1 star)18 Apr 2012

(12A) 101mins The cinematic equivalent of the clumps of horse dung that characters repeatedly step into for the cheapest of laughs, Outside Bet is strictly a non-runner in terms of light entertainment. In this painfully naïve British comedy, Bob…

All in Good Time

All in Good Time

Sweet-natured culture clash comedy starring Amara Karan and Meera Syal

(3 stars)17 Apr 2012

(12A) 93min Originally a 1965 play and subsequently a film by Irish writer Bill Naughton, this sweet-natured comedy became a theatre hit again in 2007 when East is East writer Ayub Khan-Din adapted it into a present-day British-Asian setting. The…

Mirror Mirror

Mirror Mirror

Snarky re-telling of the Snow White myth, with the odd visual flourish

(2 stars)5 Apr 2012

Tarsem Singh is a frustrating director; he has a canny eye for striking imagery, but an uncanny knack for picking scripts with little or no charm (The Fall being his sole exception so far). So it was with J-Lo vehicle The Cell and Clash of the Titans…

Moonlight and Magnolias

Moonlight and Magnolias

Ron Hutchinson's comedy explores the story behind the making of a Hollywood epic

(4 stars)2 Apr 2012

The strange alchemy that sorts screen hits from cinematic turkeys is energetically explored in Ron Hutchinson’s play about the events leading up to the shooting of Hollywood blockbuster, Gone with the Wind. The story behind the filming of Margaret…

Mr Blue Sky

Mr Blue Sky

Second season of Andrew Collins' warmly cosy Radio 4 comedy

(3 stars)27 Mar 2012

When a recession hits, even optimists can feel the heat. In the opening episode of Mr Blue Sky’s second series lovable oaf Harvey Easter tries a few tricks to save the pennies. Such as walking to the newsagent rather than having his paper delivered…

Iron Sky

Iron Sky

Finland's so-so sci-fi comedy could actually benefit from an American remake

(2 stars)19 Mar 2012

Six years in the making, Iron Sky arrives in a blaze of pre-release publicity. Finland’s first blockbuster, partly funded by fans, you certainly can’t quibble with its killer pitch: Nazis on the moon. It’s just a pity that director Timo Vuorensola’s…

21 Jump Street

21 Jump Street

Deceptively smart big screen revival of the once popular TV show, with Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill

(4 stars)12 Mar 2012

(15)109min Taken at face value, 21 Jump Street is another mis-matched buddy cop outing that mixes elements from the original television series, Superbad coming-of-age values and the gung-ho rhetoric of Michael Bay's action movies. But there's a…

Wanderlust

Wanderlust

Charmless comedy painfully short on jokes, starring Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston

(1 star)7 Mar 2012

The actors in Judd Apatow’s Comedy Stable™ have an unfortunate habit of lulling you into a false sense of security. They’ll star in a string of likeable comedies that manage to poke fun at their subject matter (unplanned pregnancy, 40 year old virgins…

Project X

Project X

Major league mayhem with a dark, twisted edge

(3 stars)1 Mar 2012

(18) 88mins Animal House meets The Blair Witch Project, only this time the horror is very real in a movie that will undoubtedly give all parents nightmares. No, this is not a film about paranormal activity, but a high school party that gets…

This Means War

This Means War

Unsuccessful mash-up of the rom-com and spy action genres

(2 stars)1 Mar 2012

(12A) 97min McG attempts to satisfy both sexes in This Means War – a testosterone-driven action meets girl-pleasing rom-com, that ends up not being good in either genre, despite featuring two of the hottest young actors around (Tom Hardy and Chris…

Fist of Fun

Fist of Fun

Stewart Lee and Richard Herring's debut TV appearance given a DVD outing

(4 stars)28 Feb 2012

‘It’s not as good as I remembered’. Thus sprach Stewart Lee about the first series of Fist of Fun, the BBC Two show which first introduced the bequiffed comic and Richard Herring, his cohort of many years, to a TV audience. While it might not be…

Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

By-the-numbers old age comedy drama

(2 stars)10 Feb 2012

Early in this by-the-numbers comedy drama, a young salesperson eagerly enthuses to retiring couple Douglas (Bill Nighy) and Jean (Penelope Wilton) that 'the grey pound is very strong at the moment'. We’re quite clearly supposed to see this…

Electric Man

Electric Man

A patchy, if well intentioned, Edinburgh-set comic comedy

(3 stars)8 Feb 2012

(12A tbc) 98min Shot in Edinburgh on a micro-budget, comic shop comedy Electric Man declares its intentions from the off: this is to be no social realist kitchen sink drama, typical of the UK film industry, but rather a light-hearted love-letter to…

Joost Swarte: Is That All There Is?

Joost Swarte: Is That All There Is?

Compendium of the Dutch cartoonist’s satirical alternative comics

(4 stars)3 Feb 2012

Apparently so. Or almost so. Is That All There Is? collects virtually all of the Dutch cartoonist’s alternative comics from way back in 1972 to the present day, translates them into English and assembles them, under Swarte’s own supervision, in this…

Henry Rollins – Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Fri 13 Jan

Henry Rollins – Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Fri 13 Jan

Prolific punk-rocker gets gut laughs on his three-hour rant

(4 stars)3 Feb 2012

Few people can make a decent living out of talking on stage for two hours. Henry Rollins, on the other hand, has it down to a fine art. An honorary punk rock graduate having earned his stripes fronting S.O.A. and Black Flag in the 80s, and later, his…

Young Adult

Young Adult

A fiercely dark comedy from Juno writer-director team Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman

(4 stars)2 Feb 2012

(15) 94min This reteaming of Juno director (Jason Reitman) and writer (Diablo Cody) is a fiercely dark character comedy that once again demonstrates the pair’s refusal to be limited by genre conventions, no matter how sacred. The set-up is…

Late'n'Live Guide to Comedy

Late'n'Live Guide to Comedy

The greatest hits of the legendary Fringe bear-pit makes an appearance on TV

(4 stars)2 Feb 2012

‘The performing equivalent of self-harm’ is how Johnny Vegas describes the bearpit hell of the notorious Late’n’Live. Brainchild of the Gilded Balloon’s head honcho Karen Koren, this Edinburgh Fringe staple has been sending chills down the spines of…

Carnage

Carnage

Polanski's comedy of upper-middle class savagery is fast, funny and filthy

(4 stars)24 Jan 2012

(15) 79mins Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s play Gods of Carnage opens with a playground spat. Set over the opening credits, it’s this innocuous bust-up that drives the bitterly funny four-hander, as the parents of both children try to…

The Adopted

The Adopted

Quirky, saccharine directorial debut from French actress Melanie Laurent

(2 stars)24 Jan 2012

(15) 100 mins Still only 28-years-old, French actress and musician Melanie Laurent makes her directorial debut with this offbeat family tale, which owes more to her recent performances in US indie Beginners and the sentimental melodrama The Concert…

Meanwhile, It's Will and Greg

Meanwhile, It's Will and Greg

Will Andrews and Greg McHugh revive their Ugly Kid sketch talents for radio

(4 stars)6 Jan 2012

On first hearing that Will Andrews and Greg McHugh have collaborated for sketch work under the moniker of Will & Greg, the cynical might believe this to be a forced pairing simply to fulfil a US TV show pun. Reflect on this, cynics: the duo’s working…

Kid Canaveral’s Christmas Baubles II - Summerhall, Edinburgh, Sat 17 Dec 2011

Kid Canaveral’s Christmas Baubles II - Summerhall, Edinburgh, Sat 17 Dec 2011

Josie Long, eagleowl and more join in Kid Canaveral's annual shindig

(4 stars)6 Jan 2012

The combination of cheap tins and 12 hours of live entertainment could be an endurance test in the wrong hands, but the second annual Fence Records/Kid Canaveral Chirstmas Baubles all-dayer doesn’t exactly feel like a chore. A joyous turn by Fence…

The Descendants

The Descendants

Star performances from George Clooney and Shailene Woodley in Alexander Payne's latest comedy drama

(4 stars)5 Jan 2012

(15) 115m In Alexander Payne’s first film since his 2004 critical darling Sideways, George Clooney plays Matt King, a Hawaii-based businessman and heir to a hugely valuable piece of Hawaiian land. On the eve of him signing a deal to sell the land and…

The Sitter

The Sitter

Zippy but unappealing sub-Apatow comedy starring Jonah Hill

(2 stars)5 Jan 2012

(15) 81min After springing to stardom in Superbad, Jonah Hill gets his first lead role in The Sitter, an amiable low-brow comedy from director David Gordon Green which throws Hill’s laid-back slacker persona into a similar underworld of criminal…

The Artist

The Artist

Delightful celebration of the bygone age of silent cinema, starring Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo

(4 stars)8 Dec 2011

(PG) 100min The Artist has in-built appeal for movie buffs who believe that the arrival of talking pictures was one of the worst things that ever happened to an art form that had found a universal language in the visual poetry of the late silent era.

Frankie Boyle

Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights

The comedian's TV show is a mix of decent stand-up material and woeful sketches

(3 stars)15 Nov 2011

Curious thing the moral barometer. After the faecal flood which surrounded the original Channel 4 showing of Tramadol Nights this time last year, some judicious cutting has been made to the DVD version. Gone is the Jordan/Harvey routine from episode two…

The Midnight Beast - Book At Us Now

The Midnight Beast - Book At Us Now

Unfunny pop-parody book designed to cash in on upcoming TV fame

(2 stars)18 Oct 2011

(Coronet) ‘We mock the living hell out of stuff for a living,’ claim London pop parody trio The Midnight Beast. Even in this disposable age, simply poking fun at more talented people can only stretch so far before the game is up. Success rarely…

Barking - DVD review

Barking - DVD review

Unessential DVD release of the short-lived C4 sketch show featuring David Walliams and Peter Kay

(3 stars)17 Oct 2011

(Acorn Media) Back in 1998, Peter Kay, Catherine Tate, David Walliams, Omid Djalili and Mackenzie Crook were all looking for a big break in their comedy careers. The Fast Show had ended on the BBC the previous year and it would be another 12 months…

Monte Carlo

Monte Carlo

Flat romcom vehicle for Justin Bieber's paramour Selena Gomez

(2 stars)12 Oct 2011

(PG) 108min The star of tween drama Wizards of Waverly Place, but better known as the current squeeze of Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez is being relentlessly packaged for fame. Her previous venture, last year’s Ramona and Beezus sank like a stone, and…

Curb You Enthusiasm

Curb Your Enthusiasm

Larry David's groundbreaking sitcom stays at the top of its game for an eighth season

(4 stars)16 Sep 2011

After the high watermark of season seven’s Seinfeld-reunion storyline, Larry David brings us dragging and cringing back into his world of petty obsessions, chronic misunderstandings and friendships permanently teetering on the brink of abrasive…

Midnight in Paris

Midnight in Paris

Another warm and witty all-star comedy from Woody Allen

(4 stars)14 Sep 2011

(12A) 94min Midnight in Paris is one of the warmest and wittiest Woody Allen films in recent memory. The jaunty manner and literary bent are reminiscent of Vicky Cristina Barcelona as Allen invests what could be a New Yorker short story with a…

Albatross

Albatross

Well-balanced coming-of-age comedy starring Downtown Abbey's Jessica Brown Findlay

(3 stars)13 Sep 2011

This British coming-of-age comedy drama from debut director Niall MacCormick retreads familiar ground with its story but, thanks to a very funny script and a combustible lead performance from newcomer Jessica Brown Findlay, it’s never dull. Findlay…

Rory Sheridan's Tales of the Antarctica

Rory Sheridan's Tales of the Antarctica

David O’Doherty in very funny piece that risks becoming one-note in tone

(3 stars)30 Aug 2011

Rory Sheridan is a lovesick man, who inadvertently ends up on an Antarctic expedition to win his bride. Sheridan is no Scott or Shackleton, he complains too much for a start – about the penguins, about the cabbage he has to eat, about the farts that…

Sammy J and Randy: Ricketts Lane

Sammy J and Randy: Ricketts Lane

Extraordinary performances in an endearing show

(4 stars)30 Aug 2011

It’s been a busy month for comedian Sammy J and his antipodean compatriot Randy the purple puppet (performed by Heath McIvor). As well as their respective solo shows they pair up for this high-energy musical about companionship and tax evasion. After…

John Scott: Totally Made Up

John Scott: Totally Made Up

Exemplary observational material worked hard in stifling venue

(4 stars)30 Aug 2011

Winner of last year’s Take the Mic competition, John Scott has his work cut out in this stifling venue. That he manages to get laughs out of our sticky situation is a testament to his immense likeability. There’s some racy stuff but Scott’s charm takes…

BUG Hosted by Adam Buxton

BUG Hosted by Adam Buxton

Entertaining but unchallenging music video presentation

(3 stars)26 Aug 2011

The usually BFI-based BUG organisation’s remit is to celebrate ‘global creativity in music video’, and in that respect, this show succeeds admirably. Videos from acts as diverse as US indie-rockers Manchester Orchestra, electro artists The Chase and…

Giants of Comedy – Darren Walsh, Leo Kearse & Lindsay Sharman

Giants of Comedy – Darren Walsh, Leo Kearse & Lindsay Sharman

They might be giants, and they're definitely tall

(4 stars)26 Aug 2011

There's a Jurassic Park moment on the approach as the ground starts shaking and concentric rings appear in the pints of the wary audience... and then they arrive: the 3 aptly titled Giants of Comedy. Compering by the comparatively short and extremely…

Twonkeys Castle

Twonkeys Castle

Surreal songs and nonsensical stories from Paul Vickers

(2 stars)26 Aug 2011

Opening with a beleaguered attempt to get an audience member spinning a hot air balloon prop around in flying motion, Twonkey's Castle weaves a surreal narrative which feels a bit like being frenetically drunk inside a scary playgroup. Northerner…

Conway's Time of the Month

Conway's Time of the Month

Hardeep Singh Kohli, Andi Osho and Imran Yusuf guest at free Edinburgh show

(4 stars)24 Aug 2011

London-based presenter and comedian Eleanor Conway brings her 5 star thighs, the news, and a host of comedy guests to Edinburgh's cosy Space 3 at the Voodoo Rooms. On the platter of entertainment are Hardeep Singh (BBC), Andi Osho (Stand up for the…

Doug Stanhope - Oslo: Burning the Bridge to Nowhere

Doug Stanhope - Oslo: Burning the Bridge to Nowhere

Live DVD from the controversial stand-up

(4 stars)24 Aug 2011

(Roadrunner Comedy) In a short introduction to this wonderfully unhinged film, Doug Stanhope (glass of lager clamped in hand) prepares the viewer to expect the unprofessional. Anyone picking up a copy of Oslo: Burning the Bridge to Nowhere…

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