comedy

The Incredibles (review)

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That teaser trailer — you know the one I’m talking about — with the fat old ex-superhero struggling to get into his spandex costume? It left such a bad taste in my mouth whenever I contemplated the film that must go with it. I imagined a gang of former masked crusaders called out of happy retirement, reluctantly huffing and puffing their way back into action, replete with very unfunny cracks about getting fat and old, and probably with an even more unfunny getting-into-shape-a-la-*Rocky* sequence thrown in for good measure.

Near Dark, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Once Bitten, Blacula, Love at First Bite, and Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter (review)

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Of course, most respected anthropologists and biologists recognize that the New World Vampire, or *vampirus americanus*, differs greatly from the European species, or *vampirus continentalus*, but few films have recognized that the wide-open spaces of the U.S. produce a vastly altered creature than Europe’s dense urban spaces or intimate, if remote, medieval villages. But years before John Carpenter and the team of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez documented the vampires that dwell in the lonely stretches of the Americas, the criminally underappreciated ethnographer Kathryn Bigelow did it — spookily, grimly, hilariously, gloriously — with 1987’s *Near Dark,* in which a coven of nasty bloodsuckers roam the deserted American Southwest.

Starsky & Hutch (review)

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It’s probably a good thing that there isn’t, cuz the culties would be disappointed in this new *Starsky & Hutch.* The only thing that’s even remotely ‘Starsky & Hutch’ about this goofy adaptation is the red and white Ford Gran Torino.

Bad Santa movie review: none more black

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So, when I attended a screening on November 14, I was already primed for *Bad Santa,* the meanest, curmudgeonliest, blackest holiday movie I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen most of ’em. It’s like, How much more black could it be? And the answer is None, none more black. I haven’t laughed at film this hard all year, and maybe not last year, either. And much of that laughter sprung from shock: I spent half the film saying to myself, ‘Holy crap, I can’t believe they did that!’ and ‘They did *not* just do that!’ It’s hard to be shocking in the era of the Farrelly Brothers, but *Bad Santa* is shocking partly because it’s so unrepentant and unapologetic. There’s no attempt to infuse the film with heart or soul or sweetness or light. *Bad Santa* unrelentingly twisted. And that’s just wonderful.

Bad Boys II (review)

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Of course it’s Michael Bay-ariffic in that adorably ultraviolent, homophobic kinda way, all vehicles exploding for no apparent reason and deeply repressed male emotions, the kind of stuff that can’t help but lead one to the conclusion that Michael Bay is denying that he has some serious issues with, really, just about everything he comes into contact with: women, men, cars, swimming pools, family pets, home electronics.

Johnny English (review)

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Rowan Atkinson (Scooby-Doo) has successfully straddled the full spectrum of funny, from the sharp intellectual wordplay of Blackadder to the pathos-imbued silent comedy of Mr. Bean. Here, alas, he lands somewhere squarely in the uninspired middle with a character who is by turns bumbling and sophisticated, idiotic and brainy, dorky and irresistible to women, contradictions … more…