The Show (2020)

Not quite a paper moon.

(2020) Neo-Noir Fantasy (Shout!) Tom Burke, Ellie Bamber, Darrell D’Silva, Christopher Fairbank, Siobhan Hewlett, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Julian Bleach, Babou Cesay, Alan Moore, Richard Dillane, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Oaklee Pendergast, Ethan Rouse, Eric Lampaert, Sheila Atim, Bradley John, Robert Goodman, Josie Taylor, Daniel Tuite, Stewart Magrath, Gayle Richardson. Directed by Mitch Jenkins

 

Alan Moore, the writer/creator of such graphic novel works as The Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Batman: The Killing Joke and From Hell, has often been described variously as curmudgeonly, grumpy, cranky, cross, and outspoken. He certainly hasn’t pulled punches regarding his opinion of cinematic adaptations of his work (he hates them, in case you were wondering). Now, he has decided to write a screenplay of his own, following up on a series of shorts he wrote for director Mitch Jenkins, entitled Show Pieces which act as a kind of prequel to this feature. No, you don’t need to see them in order to enjoy The Show although it wouldn’t hurt.

In any case, Fletcher Dennis (Burke) shows up in Northampton, the town in which Moore grew up and which he regards clearly with some fondness. He is looking for a James Mitchum, discovering that he took a severe fall outside a nightclub and has died of his wounds. Dennis shows up at the local hospital where Mitchum was taken, masquerading as his brother Bob, looking for his effects – specifically a necklace with a gold cross on which a jeweled rose is centered.

Not finding it despite a helpful morgue attendant (Bleach) who intones “I see dead people,” to which Dennis responds “You work in a hospital!” However, Dennis heads to the boarding house Mitchum was staying in and arranges to rent his room from the vivacious landlady Becky (Bamber) who doubles as a walking tour guide of Northampton, where I imagine there isn’t much call for walking tours. He also discovers that a young woman named Faith Harrington (Hewlett) was brought in at the same time as Mitchum and may hold some clue to the mystery of the missing cross.

As he digs into the mystery, aided by Faith, he will run into a drug kingpin named John Conqueror (Atim) who uses voodoo as a marketing tool, a dead comedy team that owned a working class pub that burned to the ground decades earlier, but pops up in their dreams, Dennis’ foul-mouthed client (Fairbank) and a couple of gumshoes named Tim (Pendergast, Rouse) who are likely around ten or eleven years old, operate out of a clubhouse, take payment in energy drinks, and speak noir-esque narration (their scenes are filmed in black and white).

Moore shows up as Frank Metterton, one half of the deceased comic duo whose beard and costume gives his head the shape of a crescent moon, and whose sonorous voice seems to imply more than perhaps he actually delivers. He’s actually pretty good in the role, but his arcane and occasionally obscure sense of humor shows up throughout the movie, making the film a good deal more fun than you might expect. Moore has always been, in some ways, has always cultivated the persona of the outsider, and it serves him well here.

This is not a straightforward noir film, although the genre plainly informs the action and Moore is just as plainly delivering his own version of it. Some of the tropes are skewered with sly wit, others are a bit more overt, but this isn’t a spoof so much as it is an homage. It is also, however, willfully weird, wearing its strangeness as a badge of honor with somewhat skewed camera angles, unsettling visuals and dialogue that makes Wes Anderson look like Michael Bay.

The movie is a little long and it definitely takes its time in getting where its going, but there are rewards to be had here. Fans of Alan Moore will no doubt want to rush and see this and as it is only playing for a single night as a Fathom event (locally, it can be seen at the  AMC Altamonte Mall and the AMC Disney Springs) tomorrow (Thursday, August 26^th), while others who prefer more straightforward fare might not be in such a hurry to check it out. Nonetheless, I found it entertaining enough so long as you are willing to stay with it and let yourself fall under its spell.

REASONS TO SEE: Willfully weird, but hard to ignore.
REASONS TO AVOID: The pacing needed to have been picked up a bit.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Hewlett’s Faith Harrington was the subject of the first of five Show Pieces shorts, three of which have been collected together under that name and are currently available on Shudder.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/25/21: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet; Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: A Scanner Darkly
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Finding Kendrick Johnson

Get Hard

The IRS pays a visit to Kevin Hart and Will Ferrell.

(2015) Comedy (Warner Brothers) Kevin Hart, Will Ferrell, Craig T. Nelson, Alison Brie, Edwina Findley Dickerson, Ariana Neal, Erick Chavarria, T.I., Paul Ben-Victor, John Mayer, Jon Eyez, Nito Larioza, Dan Bakkerdahl, Greg Germann, Ron Funches, Joshua Joseph Gillum, Chris Marroy, Katia Gomez, Elliott Grey, Raeden Greer, Melanie Hebert. Directed by Etan Cohen

For most of us, the thought of going to prison and doing hard time is not even something that’s on our radar. After all, we keep our indiscretions minor; speeding a little down the freeway, or entering an intersection just as the light turns red; maybe we fudge our taxes a little bit. Most of us aren’t ever going to be in a situation that might lead us to the hoosegow.

Certainly James King (Ferrell) didn’t think so. A wealthy fund manager on his way to marrying the boss’s daughter (Brie), he has essential the ultimate 1% life – a Harvard education, a high-profile position – a partnership in fact, something of a wedding gift from soon-to-be dad Martin (Nelson) – at a major financial corporation, a beautiful home and high end possessions, and expensive cars. He even has John Mayer (himself) playing his engagement party. He has it all, right?

Not for long. He’s arrested at his engagement party for embezzling funds, something he vehemently denies doing. However, the evidence is damning as the paper trail leads directly to James. A populist judge (Grey) instead of sentencing James to a country club minimum security facility instead sends him to San Quentin for ten years. James is given 30 days to get his affairs in order.

James knows that he has absolutely no chance to survive in prison. He needs to be prepared for what he’s going to encounter there, learn to defend himself. There aren’t many who can adequately get him ready for the big house, but maybe there is someone…why, the guy who washes his car at work, Darnell (Hart) – why, he’s a black man. Statistically speaking, there’s a good chance Darnell has been incarcerated.

In fact, Darnell has not – he’s a family man with a small business trying to make things better for his family by putting a down payment for a house in a better neighborhood with better schools for his daughter Makayla (Neal). He needs the money, so he agrees to get James ready, much to the bemusement of his wife Rita (Dickerson) who is fully aware that Darnell has a better chance of dunking on Dwight Howard than he does of being a true thug.

But Darnell has a plan and that’s to turn James’ home into a simulation of prison life, which suits James’ domestic staff just fine. James is confident that the investigators that Martin has put on the case will soon exonerate him but as the days tick closer to the day James has to report to San Quentin, Darnell begins to realize that not only is James as innocent as he says he is but that nothing that Darnell can do will EVER help James survive in prison – nothing can. The only chance James has to survive is to prove his innocence, but that seems next to impossible.

Hart and Ferrell are two of the biggest comic actors in Hollywood, with Hart dominating over the past few years and Ferrell making some of the most iconic comedy classics of the past decade. Their styles are completely different; Ferrell is a lot more over-the-top and often plays clueless boobs (as he does here) while Hart is more of a street-smart hustler sort who writes checks with his mouth that he can’t cash with his body or his skills. You wouldn’t think that the two would mesh all that well but there is in fact some chemistry between them – a lot more than I expected in fact. Cohen, the writer of Tropic Thunder making his debut as a director, wisely does a kind of back and forth type of presentation allowing both comics to shine individually and together as well. Considering that most people paying to see this are looking to see two of the best comedians working today together, I think it’s a wise course of action.

Also wise was getting Key and Peele writers Ian Roberts and Jay Martel to do the script, but somewhat surprisingly the two didn’t come through as well. Much of the plot is ultimately predictable and cliche, which considering the edgy material they’ve done for the popular Comedy Central show, is an unexpected bummer.

The movie means to examine through the lens of comedy racial discord and attitudes, homophobia and stereotypes. There are quite a few critics who have accused the movie of being racist and homophobic, but honestly, only the most politically correct nimrods are going to find it that way. There’s a vast difference between laughing at racial stereotypes and holding them up to ridicule and being racist. Part of the comedy comes from James’ abysmal ignorance of African-Americans and their culture; as a sheltered 1% sort he’s only hung around other 1% sorts which have, if you’ll excuse the expression, colored his perceptions. In white society, people often say “But I have black friends” when called out for racial insensitivity and that’s exactly how James undoubtedly would react.

There’s probably more of a case for homophobia when James is told to learn how to perform oral sex on other men as a means of survival but is unable to do it. However, there is a gay character who befriends Darnell who comes off as pretty normal and reasonable rather than a stereotype which I found refreshing. There was precious little mincing by the gay characters in the movie.

After having heard almost nothing but negative reviews for the movie I was pleasantly surprised to find it a lot funnier than I expected with an unexpected strong comedic timing throughout. The jokes flow nicely and the plot, while predictable, at least keeps moving along. The material is fairly crude – although if the movie were bigger at the box office “keistering” might become a thing – but I’ve seen cruder.

This is one of those movies that should be the poster child for not letting critics make up your mind for you. I found it to be positively entertaining and while it doesn’t break new ground, it does at least what it’s meant to do – keep the audience laughing and showcasing two superior talents in Hart and Ferrell who hopefully will team up again after this. Maybe in a movie where their roles are reversed, where Hart is the privileged snob and Ferrell is the street-wise hustler. That’s something I’d pay to see.

REASONS TO GO: Nice chemistry between Hart and Ferrell. Some outrageously funny moments.
REASONS TO STAY: Over-sensitive and too politically correct sorts may find this racist/homophobic. Plot is fairly predictable.
FAMILY VALUES: Crude and sexual humor, graphic nudity, some violence, plenty of foul language and sexual innuendo and some drug use.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Will Ferrell is 11 inches taller than Kevin Hart which led to some fairly interesting camera angles in order to make the differential less severe.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/7/15: Rotten Tomatoes: 29% positive reviews. Metacritic: 34/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Let’s Go to Jail
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Furious 7

The Internship

No, not the Tour de France.

(2013) Comedy (20th Century Fox) Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Max Minghella, Rose Byrne, Aasif Mandvi, Josh Brener, Dylan O’Brien, Tiya Sircar, Tobit Raphael, Josh Gad, Jessica Szohr, Rob Riggle, Eric Andre, Harvey Guillen, Gary Anthony Williams, John Goodman, Will Ferrell, Bruno Amato, JoAnna Garcia Swisher, Anna Enger, B.J. Novak, Karen Ceesay, Jill Jane Clements. Directed by Shawn Levy

 

One of the truths about modern life is that things are changing faster than we can keep up with them. Those of us who are middle aged don’t always notice it but when we take a moment to breathe it can be staggering how far we’ve come and how our lives have changed. For my part, I never thought of myself as particularly “tech-savvy” growing up but here I am blogging daily on the Internet.

Nick Campbell (Wilson) and Billy McMahon (Vaughn) are feeling the currents of change swirling around them. Old school salesmen, they discover at a meeting with a client that their company has shut its doors without telling them. Nobody uses watches anymore apparently – people find out what time it is these days by checking their smart phones.

Without a college education and with limited skill sets in an increasingly high tech job market, the two flounder. Nick takes a job with his sister’s boyfriend (Ferrell) at a mattress store which is as demeaning as it gets but Billy, searching on Google for job possibilities, lands an interview for a possible internship at Google itself.

The two, neither one owning a computer of their own, use one in a public library (having to fend off snarky kids) and display an appalling lack of savvy when it comes to tech matters but the interviewers (Novak, Ceesay) discover that they bring other skills to the table – outside-of-the-box thinking and personal skills that most kids today haven’t had to develop.

Against all odds, they get a shot at an internship which could lead after a full summer to a high-paying job on the Google campus in Mountain View, California which kind of resembles a cubicle cowboy’s version of Fantasyland – but keep in mind that the production filmed there. The perks of employment (free food, nap pods, a volleyball court and loaner bikes) are actually part of the company’s employment package and the offhand remark early in the film that Google was rated the best place to work in the country is also true. Not in the movie are also a roller hockey rink, basketball courts, three wellness centers and onsite daycare.

Most of the other interns vying for a handful of jobs are kids half their age, all of them fresh out of college. Billy and Nick quickly realize that they are outgunned for this “mental Hunger Games” as Billy put it and realize that their only chance at landing the jobs they desperately need is by aligning themselves with the best team possible and coat-tailing it into employment. One of their competitors, the pretentious and arrogant Graham (Minghella) turns out to be something of a shark, snapping up all the whiz kids on his team.

This leaves them with the :”outcasts” who include Yo-Yo (Raphael), a home-schooled genius who was so bullied by his Korean mom that he picks at his eyebrows whenever he gets stressed – which leaves him without an eyebrow by the end of the internship, Neha (Sircar) a beautiful Southeast Asian chick who talks a good sexual game, Stuart (O’Brien) a cat so cool he rarely looks up from his smart phone to see what’s going on around him and Lyle (Brener) the nebbish manager who is mentoring them.

The internship is made up of a series of challenges overseen by Chetty (Mandvi), a Google executive who’s as frosty as the cold one he won’t be having with his employees. The commitment-phobic Nick strikes up a romantic friendship with Dana (Byrne), a hard-working manager whose life off endless meetings and brutally long workdays have left her without much of a life. As the games begin, Nick and Billy’s team seem hopelessly outcast. Can these old dogs teach their young teammates new tricks?

The plot is fairly formulaic so the answer to that question should be pretty self-evident. This is a movie that is meant to make the audience feel good and to a pretty good extent, it succeeds. Wilson and Vaughn first teamed up eight years ago in The Wedding Crashers and for whatever reason haven’t gotten together again since. However, their chemistry – central to the charm and success of that movie – is intact here thank goodness.

The two make a highly effective comedy team, the easygoing Wilson making a perfect foil to the manic fast-talking Vaughn. Some are going to measure The Internship to their previous movie and while I’ll admit it isn’t quite as funny as their first film, it’s unquestionably still entertaining. Mandvi, a veteran character actor, is particularly appealing as is the woefully underemployed Byrne. I liked all of the young actors who played their team and while Minghella’s Graham is less despicable in some ways than villains in similar movies, he still turns out to be the one you love to root against.

This does play like a puff piece for Google and that might grit a few teeth here and there. I’m not sure that they employ a lot of middle aged tech-challenged sorts but my guess is that the Billys and Nicks are few and far between on their Mountain View campus. Diversity only goes so far so in other words don’t get your hopes up.

I liked the movie enough to give it a solid recommendation. This isn’t a groundbreaker by any stretch but if you’re looking for a movie to give you a bit of a lift certainly this will fit the bill. A movie doesn’t necessarily have to give you deep insights to be a good movie; sometimes watching the underdog come through is enough to keep us going in a world where the haves seem to win an awful lot more than the have-nots. Given the presence of the team of Vaughn and Wilson is an added bonus. I only hope their next film comes sooner than eight years from now.

REASONS TO GO: Chemistry between Vaughn and Wilson is still solid. Feel-good movie.

REASONS TO STAY: Not as funny as one would hope. A nearly two hour commercial for Google.

FAMILY VALUES:  The movie has its share of foul language, sexual references and crude humor.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The annoyed Google employee trying to take a nap during the nap pod sequence when Nick is trying to talk to Dana is played by director Shawn Levy.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/15/13: Rotten Tomatoes: 33% positive reviews. Metacritic: 43/100; yet another movie this summer the critics are lukewarm on.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Real Genius

FINAL RATING: 6/10

NEXT: This is the End