Film, Comedy

Extract

19 Mar 2010

(15) 94min After his considerable small screen success with Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill, it was clear that Mike Judge’s brand of caustic humour would, one day, enable him to make a great big-screen comedy. Judge’s fans believe he’s…

Perrier's Bounty

18 Mar 2010

(15) 88min After an accidental shooting, charismatic Dublin gangster Michael McCrea (Cillian Murphy) goes on the run with his fey neighbour Brenda (Jodie Whittaker) and his coke-snorting, hypochondriac father Jim (Jim Broadbent). Together they have…

The Spy Next Door

18 Mar 2010

(PG) 94min Some years after Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop and Vin Diesel in The Pacifier, Jackie Chan is the latest action star seeking to reinvent himself for a younger generation by portraying himself as a put-upon babysitter to bratty…

Old Dogs

18 Mar 2010

(PG) 88min Having earned his rubbish comedy spurs on Walt Becker’s biker comedy Wild Hogs, John Travolta returns on a fool’s errand to partner Robin Williams in the same director’s follow-up Old Dogs. Via a series of arch plot contrivances that…

Kick-Ass

18 Mar 2010

(15) 117min Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of Mark Millar’s comic book series is a hilarious, hip twist on the superhero genre. Gone are the superpowers, the 100 inch chests and holier than thou attitude. Instead our hero is an awkward teenager, Dave…

Machan

19 Jan 2010

Comedies about immigration are pretty thin on the ground these days but The Full Monty producer Uberto Pasolini’s directorial debut is a sweet anomaly. Based on the true story of a group of Sri Lankans who fly to Bavaria pretending to be their country’s…

2010 preview: Great expectations

7 Jan 2010

Favourite things are ending, exciting things are beginning and old things are coming back. 2010 is already shaping up to be a thrilling year and here are the 30 good reasons why we can’t wait

The Hot 100 2009

18 Dec 2009

Compiled by List staff through a painstaking process of review and debate, the Hot 100 is the comprehensive list of Scottish creative talent, covering both individuals and organisations who’ve made a standout contribution to culture in 2009. This year’s…

Unmade Beds

4 Dec 2009

Written and directed by Argentinean filmmaker Alexis Dos Santos, Unmade Beds unfolds against the backdrop of the East End of London’s modern day bohemian scene. It’s a world of rent-free accommodation in generously equipped warehouse squats, regular…

Southern Softies

19 Nov 2009

Comic singer/organist makes his film debut in this comedy documentary which takes Shuttleworth and his ever on hand neighbour Ken down to the Channel Islands to find out if it really is ‘soft down south.’ A Q&A with star/director Graham Fellows will…

Will Ferrell interview

Land of the Lost star talk us through time

6 Nov 2009

With the DVD release of Land of the Lost imminent, Will Ferrell explains his role in this fast-paced, action adventure comedy.

Morris: A Life with Bells On

4 Nov 2009

Lucy Akhurst’s very English comedy about an avant garde morris dancer gets a brief outing this fortnight. GFT, Glasgow from Fri 6-Sun 8 Nov.

National Lampoon’s Animal House

23 Oct 2009

(15) 108min John Landis’ seminal 1978 frat house comedy on new digital print. Selected release from Tue 3 Nov.

Starsuckers

23 Oct 2009

Also out this fortnight is Chris Taking Liberties Atkins’ wonderfully mischievous documentary foray into the world of celebrity obsessed media. Atkins and his team hilariously illustrate just how easy it is to plant hoax celebrity stories with an…

Playing Away

A 1980s sports comedy to transcend racial stereotypes

22 Oct 2009

This is a very welcome reissue of Horace Pressure Ové’s 1987 comedy of race manners. When a West Indian cricket team from Brixton travels to a Suffolk village to play against the local team as the culmination of the village’s Third World Week, racial…

Profile: Cristian Mungiu

A look at the award winning director before his latest work, Tales From the Golden Age

22 Oct 2009

Name Cristian Mungiu Born 27 April 1968 Background The graduate of the Bucharest Film School became the first Romanian director to win the Palme d’Or with his abortion drama 4 months 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Before becoming a full-time director…

Tales of the Golden Age (Amintiri Din Epoca De Aur)

Affectionate Romanian cinema

21 Oct 2009

Cristian Mungiu, the Palme D’Or winning Romanian filmmaker of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, would almost certainly find himself in contention with American communications magnate Harold S Geneen’s much quoted belief that ‘We must not be hampered by…

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Inspired take on the Dahl classic

16 Oct 2009

Wes Anderson’s animated adaptation of Roald Dahl’s much loved book is no straightforward children’s film. Wee ones might enjoy it to a degree, but they won’t get much of the typically arch humour and wanton eccentricities the filmmaker once again…

Jennifer's Body

Winning horror comedy from Juno writer

16 Oct 2009

When it was released in the US, the heterosexual males who ogled Megan Fox’s superstructure amid the heavy-metal chaos of two Transformers movies stayed away in droves from Jennifer’s Body , and it’s not hard to see why. Karyn Kusama’s visceral horror…

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard

The jokes are out of gas

16 Oct 2009

‘We’re not going to break the rules, we’re just going to bend them a little bit,’ announces ruthless car-salesman Don Ready (Jeremy Piven) as he and his crack team of ‘car mercenaries’ descend on the small Californian backwater of Temecula. Their…

Interview: Wes Anderson

The director talks about adapting Fantastic Mr. Fox for the big screen

15 Oct 2009

Texan born director Wes Anderson is renowned for making highly detailed and idiosyncratic films populated with slightly neurotic, child-like characters (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited). Seeing him in person, you realise that he wouldn’t…

Zombieland

Surviving a world overrun by zombies

5 Oct 2009

Zombieland is pitched somewhere between From Dusk Till Dawn and Anchor Man with a nod of the stetson to George A Romero’s zombie flicks. Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin are four disparate characters hell-bent on…

Couples Retreat

Daft slapstick and a smearing of schmaltz

5 Oct 2009

Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn are all grown up since Swingers and are now here, buddying it up as a part of four couples who hit their 40s and end up mistakenly entering into a compulsory couples therapy retreat on a luxury island resort. Cue lots of…

I Sell the Dead

The horror comedy comes to DVD

2 Oct 2009

First-time writer-director Glenn McQuaid does a pretty good job of invoking the spirit of the camp old Hammer chillers films with this low-budget comedy horror about a pair luckless bodysnatchers. Set in a mist-shrouded backwater of 19th century feckin…

The 40 Year Old Virgin

23 Sep 2009

Despite the title The 40 Year Old Virgin is a surprisingly sweet film from comedy juggernaut Judd Apatow that brought Steve Carroll to the public at large’s attention in the titular role. Screening here with The Hangover for a smart comedy double…