Comedy, Reviews

O Lucky Man!

8 May 2008

COMEDY/SATIRE (15) 169min (Warner Home Video) Lindsay Anderson’s 1973 masterpiece is long overdue a proper DVD release, particularly since it’s rarely shown on our television or cinema screens. In O Lucky Man!, Clockwork Orange star Malcolm McDowell…

Smart People

8 May 2008

COMEDY DRAMA (15) 94min Another week and another dysfunctional American family comedy. Scripted by novelist Mark Poirier and directed by newcomer Noam Murro, Smart People examines the improbable rejuvenation of widowed, middle-aged English professor…

Welcome to the Sticks

8 May 2008

COMEDY (12A) 106min Dany Boon’s box-office hit is the most successful French movie of all time. In just seven weeks on release, it broke 1966 comedy La Grande Vadrouille’s record for the highest ever attendance for a French film on home soil with 17…

William Sutcliffe - Whatever Makes You Happy

8 May 2008

FAMILY COMEDY (Bloomsbury) William Sutcliffe, Edinburgh-based spouse to Maggie O’Farrell and schoolmate of Ali G, is still best known for his 1997 coming of age debut Are You Experienced? Eleven years and three more books later, his fifth novel…

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

24 Apr 2008

ROMANCE/COMEDY (15) 110min The Judd Apatow movie production line shows no signs of abating as Forgetting Sarah Marshall follows the template of Knocked Up to deliver some laughs, banal moralising and side characters that outshine the lead. Writer and…

Made of Honour

24 Apr 2008

ROMANTIC COMEDY (12A) 101min Tom (former teen heartthrob Patrick Dempsey) is a wealthy New York City playboy. Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) is Tom’s best friend and the single constant female companion in the life of a serial shagger. But when Hannah is…

Three and Out

24 Apr 2008

COMEDY (15) 106min Heard the one about the suicidal 50-something Irishman Tommy (Colm Meaney) and the London tube driver and aspiring novelist Paul (Mackenzie Crook), who needs somebody to throw themselves under his train in order to collect a…

In Bruges

10 Apr 2008

CRIME/COMEDY (18) 107min A pair of mismatched professional hitmen are sent to the picturesque titular Belgian city to lie low after a job in London goes wrong. There, young philistine Ray (Colin Farrell) and older, cultured Ken (Brendan Gleeson) argue…

Also Released - Film

10 Apr 2008

Leatherheads (PG) 113min •• Directed by and starring George Clooney, Leatherheads is a wannabe Preston Sturges-style romantic comedy set against the backdrop of the burgeoning American football league in 1925. Dodge Connolly (Clooney) is a cocky but…

Botched

10 Apr 2008

COMEDY/CRIME/HORROR (15) 94min If characters explode like tomatoes in microwaves, you’re probably witnessing the continuing rise of British splat-core comedy horror that’s had as many hits (Shaun of the Dead, Severance) as misses (The Cottage), the…

Strange Wilderness

10 Apr 2008

COMEDY (15) 84min Dude, where’s my countryside? From Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison company, Strange Wilderness is another stoner-meets-nature comedy from director Fred Wolf, writer of the similarly low-rent male-bonding opus Without a Paddle. Peter…

Vegas Baby

10 Apr 2008

COMEDY (15) 86min (Momentum DVD rental/retail) One of the problems with Eric Bernt’s wannabe lad comedy is that there’s a twist in the tale that even the planners for Heathrow Terminal 5 could spot in advance. But it’s not the only problem. There…

27 Dresses

27 Mar 2008

COMEDY/ROMANCE (12A) 110min During an interview to promote Knocked Up, actress Katherine Heigl said of the Judd Apatow comedy that brought her worldwide fame (after her years lighting up Grey’s Anatomy): ‘It paints women as shrews, as humourless and…

First Sunday

27 Mar 2008

CRIME/COMEDY (12A) 97min When trousers fall down to reveal brightly-coloured underwear, any comedy is instantly revealed as low-brow, yet this vehicle for ex-rapper Ice Cube written, directed and produced by his old promo director friend David E…

You, the Living

27 Mar 2008

COMEDY/DRAMA (15) 93min In an unnamed Nordic city a moustachioed tuba-player starts talking about savings and pensions, while making love to his wife who is wearing a military helmet. A dog is dragged along a pavement, attached to the walker of its…

Les Patterson Saves The World

13 Mar 2008

COMEDY (15) 85min (Arrow DVD retail) Strewth! When an unfortunate incident involving fart-burning at the UN sees Sir Les Patterson ignite Mustafa Toul, dictator of an oil rich middle eastern state, our hero is sent there to make amends. From there he…

Meet the Spartans

13 Mar 2008

COMEDY (12A) 83min Date Movie and Epic Movie were unforgivable atrocities against comedy, but writer/directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer manage to deal themselves a slightly stronger hand with their latest effort Meet the Spartans, which sets…

The Boss Of It All

13 Mar 2008

COMEDY (15) 99min Taking a break from vituperative deconstructions of US history, the ever playful Danish director, writer and producer Lars Von Trier brings us a comedy shot in Automavision, a process whereby the director chooses a fixed camera…

The Cottage

13 Mar 2008

COMEDY/HORROR (18) 91min The art of the horror comedy is in juxtaposing terror with humour until both are intensified into hysteria. Good examples of the genre include John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London, Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2 and Wes…

Semi-Pro

28 Feb 2008

COMEDY (15) 91min Will Ferrell raises his game with this typically energetic and supremely daft ‘frat pack’ comedy that also boasts a surprising winning streak in its semi-serious celebration of the now defunct American Basketball Association. With…

Margot at the Wedding

28 Feb 2008

DRAMA/COMEDY (15) 92min Writer/director Noah Baumbach starts proceedings on his latest feature with a block capital title caption, forewarning the audience that his latest offering pays homage to the French New Wave, in particular the work of Francois…

The Game Plan

28 Feb 2008

FAMILY/COMEDY (U) 110min ‘Can you smell what The Rock is cooking?’ Although wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson doesn’t get to use his trademark catchphrase in Disney family-values comedy The Game Plan, his charismatic presence turns some…

The Bucket List

14 Feb 2008

COMEDY/ADVENTURE (12A) 96min After four decades as one of cinema’s most personable superstars, Jack Nicholson deserves the extended curtain call he gets in The Bucket List, even if it is sentimental, mawkish and manipulative. Ideally cast as filthy…

Be Kind Rewind

14 Feb 2008

COMEDY (12A) 100min Michel Gondry’s freewheeling satire on copyright law features a frustrated filmmaker Mike (Mos Def), who works in a VHS-only video store in an apartment block due for demolition. When his dad (Danny Glover) is out of town finding…

Penelope

(U) 89min

31 Jan 2008

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away from self-conscious satire, there lived a girl named Penelope (Christina Ricci). With her moneyed background, good sense of humour and French language skills, Penelope should be a bit of a catch. Sadly, Penelope…

Eagle Vs Shark

17 Jan 2008

COMEDY (15) 84min (Optimum DVD rental/retail) With its sweet soul and crumbly heart, you’d think that Eagle vs Shark would only be fit for shooting out of the sky or being drowned at birth. But in the hands of writer/director Taika Waititi and…

Slacker

17 Jan 2008

COMEDY/DRAMA (15) 93min (Metrodome rental/retail) Originally released in 1991, Richard Linklater’s fine low-budget second feature may bring to mind one of contemporary cinema’s most over-used storytelling devices: the multiple character tale. But…

Sydney White

17 Jan 2008

COMEDY/ROMANCE (12A) 107min Ever since Amy Heckerling’s Clueless loosely adapted Jane Austen’s Emma to a modern High School setting it’s been the done thing to drop classic texts into a contemporary teenage setting. Joe Nussbaum’s Sydney White…

The Good Night

17 Jan 2008

COMEDY/DRAMA/ROMANCE (15) 93min Not above cashing-in on family connections, writer/director Jake Paltrow’s romantic comedy casts his older sister Gwyneth as the dowdy, disaffected partner of commercial jingle writer Gary (Martin Freeman). A kind…

PS I Love You

4 Jan 2008

COMEDY/ROMANCE (12A) 126min As the well-connected daughter of the current Taoiseach, author Cecilia Ahern could surely have pulled a few strings to ensure her novel PS I Love You avoided the abhorrent adaptation offered here by…

The Twelve Chairs

4 Jan 2008

COMEDY DRAMA (12A) 93min (Network DVD rental/retail) When Hipolito (Enriqye Saniesteban) hears that his dying mother-in-law has left a fortune in jewels stashed away in one of her dozen imported chairs, he determines to find the missing fortune.

What's Up, Tiger Lily?

4 Jan 2008

COMEDY (PG) 76min (Optimum retail) Despite insisting in the intro to his 1966 directorial debut (of sorts) that Gone With the Wind used the same strategy, this was the first film to remove the dialogue of one movie and dub a completely new stream of…

You Kill Me

29 Nov 2007

COMEDY/THRILLER (15) 92min John The Last Seduction Dahl’s latest film is a work of modest ambition that manages to hit just the right notes. The gleefully morbid script, by screenwriting team Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (The Life and…

Codename: The Cleaner

29 Nov 2007

COMEDY (12A) 84min So-called comedian Cedric the Entertainer should change his name to Cedric the Complete Non-Event on the evidence of this painfully un-entertaining spoof on the Jason Bourne movies. Having directed genuinely unfunny vehicles for…

Southland Tales

29 Nov 2007

SCI FI/COMEDY/DRAMA (15) 144min Los Angeles, 4 July 2008. Society is on the brink of social, economic and environmental collapse and an action star/boxer, a porn star and a police officer are making a last stand. Writer/director Richard Kelly’s…

DVD Roundup

15 Nov 2007

‘No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees/No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds!’ That’s how English poet and humourist Thomas Hood chose to describe the month of November. There is some of Hood’s cheeky sense of observation in John Waters: This…

Bill Bailey

1 Nov 2007

STAND-UP SECC, Glasgow, Wed 7–Fri 9 Nov It seems clear that Bill Bailey has never minded looking somewhat foolish in the pursuit of his chosen career path. Back in the early days when he was a mere West Country boy trying to earn a modest showbusiness…

Death at a Funeral

1 Nov 2007

DRAMA/COMEDY (15) 90min Having reportedly had his hands burned by the studios, who demanded re-shoots and re-cuts to what turned out to be a risible remake of The Stepford Wives, director Frank Oz (Mr Muppets to you and me) turns his not untalented…

Good Luck Chuck

1 Nov 2007

COMEDY/ROMANCE (15) 99min After demonstrating his lack of timing as editor on three Rush Hour films, Mark Helfrich makes an unsurprisingly awful directorial debut with this crude romantic comedy. US stand-up comic Dane Cook plays Charlie, a…

I Do

1 Nov 2007

ROMANTIC COMEDY (PG) 90min Meet Louis Costa (Alain Chabat from The Science of Sleep). He’s a 40-something Parisian perfumier, happily content with his bachelor existence. Yet, the women in his family – specifically domineering mother Genevieve…

Romuald et Juliette

1 Nov 2007

With broad hindsight it can often seem that too many French films made in the 80s centred around life swapping scenarios or sudden shifts in perspective and expectation – whether that happened to be Bertrand Blier with mischievous satires like Tenue de…

The Band's Visit

1 Nov 2007

COMEDY/DRAMA (12A) 87min The band in question is the Alexandria Ceremonial Police group, which has come to Israel to perform at the opening of an Arab cultural centre in Petach Tivka, north-east of Tel Aviv. Unfortunately for them there’s no one to…

The Brothers Solomon

1 Nov 2007

COMEDY (15) 92min Comedians Will Forte and Will Arnet dumb down their already dumb strain of Saturday Night Live humour to exhausting effect in this lowbrow comedy. When their father (Lee Majors) lapses into a coma, the understandably single Solomon…

Brendon Burns

18 Oct 2007

STAND-UP Maggie May’s, Glasgow, Fri 19 Oct When Brendon Burns was nine years old, he decided that a career in stand-up comedy was the road he wanted to travel down. While in Texas with his family, he was snuck into a comedy club through its kitchen…

Daddy Day Camp

18 Oct 2007

COMEDY/FAMILY (PG) 88min The indelible image of Cuba Gooding Jr enthusiastically ejaculating over Roger Moore’s face in 2003’s dismal comedy Boat Trip seemed to signal a new low in the one-time Academy Award-winner’s career trajectory. But somehow…

The History of the World Backwards

18 Oct 2007

COMEDY BBC4, Tue 30 Oct, 10pm Of all the survivors of The Mary Whitehouse Experience, Robert Newman has arguably been the one to escape with the largest amount of public goodwill behind him. Punt and Dennis have eased themselves into genteel…

Black Sheep

4 Oct 2007

It was only a matter of time before an enterprising New Zealand filmmaker made a horror movie about sheep. It’s surprising it’s taken this long for one to reach the big screen, and more surprising still, given the inherent low horror factor of lamb…

Ratatouille

4 Oct 2007

(U) 110min COMEDY/ANIMATION Writer/director Brad Bird’s animated version of The Iron Giant made him the obvious candidate to follow on from John Lasseter’s innovative groundwork at Pixar, where he scored an immediate hit with The Incredibles. So even…

Labyrinth of Passion

4 Oct 2007

(18) 94min (Tartan/DVD Retail) SCREWBALL MELODRAMA It was with this, Pedro Almodovar’s second film, made in 1982, that the brand of melodrama which has become known as ‘Almodorama’ – essentially a combination of melodrama and screwball comedy…

The Ex

4 Oct 2007

(15) 90min (Icon/Rental) COMEDY Meet the Parents meets There’s Something About Mary with a bit of Garden State thrown in for good measure just about sums up the hardly original but often amusing latest Zach Braff vehicle. Playing a husband who’s…