Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #85: Four Lions (2010)

Chris Morris, a notoriously shy, reclusive BBC comedian and so-called "media terrorist" has directed his first feature film. And fittingly, it's about terrorism. Yippee! He's directed for and starred in various BBC television projects in the past, and his stuff is typically hilarious and full of biting commentary. Seeing his name on the DVD case certainly grabbed my interest, since it promised something aggressively satirical.

Four Lions centres on four British jihadists trying to take their ideals to a violent end and blow themselves up in the name of the great struggle against MacDonald's and Jews and all that jazz. One of the characters is so comfortable with blowing up that his own family encourages him lovingly towards his goal as though he were simply going for a raise at his security job. He's the one with the most relative sense, and the other guys are mostly hapless, confused, and belligerent. Some of them aren't exactly sure they want to blow up, but the peer pressure is too great for them. One goes so far as to try to train cute, friendly crows strapped with bombs to fly into sex toy shops and jihad themselves up to heaven. It doesn't go too well.

While the characters are clearly huge idiots, they also seem very human. The stupidity that it takes to blow yourself up and kill people doesn't precisely come from a fanatically religious place in Four Lions. Rather, it seems to have more to do with human insecurities and vulnerabilities. This makes the characters mostly sympathetic idiots rather than easily dismissed and disliked religious lunatics. You get the constant impression that these people are missing something and getting in way over their heads. The key phrase at a pivotal moment in the narrative is "I'm sorry. I don't really know what I'm doing."

So: Some interesting and endearing satire. Worth a look.

Wendy's Films of 2010 #100: Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

This may be the first film I watched after getting my wisdom teeth out back in May, but I definitely remember it clearly as I often do with films I thoroughly enjoy. I'm glad that this film, my 100th, is one that I sincerely liked. 


Kind Hearts and Coronets is the story of a young man whose mother is shunned by her aristocratic family after marrying a man of lower means. As her son, Louis, grows older and his mother dies (her family denying her dying wish) he begins to plot towards inheriting his family's dukedom. The only trouble is, there are 12 others in his way.

The film has the perfect level of black humour as Louis simultaneously begins to elevate his position in society and terminate members of his rich, upper-class family, almost all played by the genius Alec Guinness. Each death is planned to comedic and undetectable perfection and Guinness's portrayal of 8 different characters ranging from a middle-aged woman to several men, young and old simply blows my mind. Of course, the complications come with women, and Louis finds himself in some potential trouble after a former lover reenters his life. As for his fate, you'll have to wait and discover it in the film's clever and artful ending, definitely one of the best I've seen in recent memory.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #63: Metalocalypse Season 1 (2006)

So the end times really must be near, since never in my wildest imaginings would I have expected this show to grace the screens. Not even via the twisted hearts working within Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Metalocalypse is clearly the cartoon comedy I hadn't realised I wanted.

Here's the deal: Dethklok, a death metal band, has become the most popular musical force on the planet. An album’s delay will result in world-wide rioting. Their home-base and recording studio is the size of a small country; their staff a standing army, darkly hooded and fitted with medieval weaponry. The band’s mission is to make all things metal. Clowns, sea-life, coffee, doorknobs, everything. It is the Metalocalypse, and each episode a secret society comprised of religious figures, military generals, and specialists (voiced by various heavy metal legends) try to stop it from coming to pass. It’s a wicked engine of hilarity and heavy metal hooplah, filled with absurd violence, satire, fantasy, nods to subculture, and genuinely well-crafted death metal. A live incarnation of Dethklok tours now and again (I managed to see them in concert last year with Mastodon), lead by series co-creator Brendon Small of Home Movies fame. Small is apparently music grad and evidently a master shredder. 'The Dethalbum' features the amazing songs from the show and belongs in any honest metal collection.

It’s all absolutely wonderful. You’ve guessed, I’m sure, that this is pretty much a dish served for metal heads and geeks, and that if you’re neither of the two, there won’t be much for you to appreciate. But that might not be entirely true – if you’ve seen and liked any Adult Swim cartoons, I dare say you might like this. The humour is in the same vein, chiefly delivered through bizarre, meandering conversations and random occurrences. But, this time, with a heavy touch of heavy metal.

So: Can't recommend this show enough. One of my favourite shows of all time.

Pose Reviews A Movie. #27: Death At A Funeral (2007)

Ah yes...leave it to the Brits to put the "fun" back in "funeral."

Frank Oz (AKA Miss Piggy) brings us this celebrated dark comedy all the way from the UK, documenting an ordinary funeral that goes extraordinarily wrong.

The entire film plays like a really, really good episode of Fawlty Towers in the way that many of the characters buzz around, hiding secrets and lying through their teeth in a vain attempt to maintain order and solemnity at an occasion that is quickly and drastically taking a turn for the funny and ridiculous.

Death At A Funeral makes excellent use of awkward and deadpan humour, but it is also not short on laugh-out-loud moments. And I can't possibly review it without mentioning that it sports close-up of two of the best single facial expressions I've seen captured on film.

In short, there's no lack of golden moments, I assure you.

I think what makes Death At A Funeral so humorous, however, is the fact that most of the characters aren't particularly likable.

If they were people the audience could emotionally bond with, the movie would cease to be a comedy--you would just spend the entire movie cringing and wondering why such bizarre punishments were being bestowed upon such lovely people.

But they aren't lovely. Most of the time, they just suck as people.

I mean, you go from whiny but mostly harmless protagonist Daniel on the one hand to Ewen Bremner's character Justin on the other--easily one of the greatest assholes in British cinema.

And I think that's why it's perfectly OK to laugh at the outlandish antics that go on--that, and the antics that writer Dean Craig comes up with are pretty damn funny in and of themselves.

Overall, I'd highly recommend Death At A Funeral for anyone who hasn't seen a good comedy in a while--it may not make you laugh so hard you pee your pants, but...you know...not everything can be Airplane!

Plus you'll save on laundry.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #45: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)

I realise that this is probably nonsense to many a movie-goer, but Robert Downey jr. consistently annoys the living tapeworms out of me. I just can't digest his line deliveries very well, and neither can the tapeworms. The flippant and breakneck banter I've come to link to Downey pretty much ruined the Iron Man flicks for me, as in those movies - more pronouncedly in the second - the banter reaches a level something like 'extreme biohazard'. This review is starting off with a real tilt towards the biological, and I'm not entirely sure why. Hm. Oh well.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is infectious. The dialogue comes very close to annoying Downey syndrome, but manages to reel back just enough to strike me mostly as charming. It's written by Shane Black, who apparently wrote the first Lethal Weapon movie. And Last Action Hero. Yep. (Holy shit - that's the creeping familiarity that's been lurking in my unconscious since watching this movie. That's why Downey bothers me. I think he reminds me of Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon, and I've never been keen on the Lethal Weapon series. Downey gets characters with the same flippant attitude, the same borderline madness. Here I'd like to apologise to Mr. Downey Jr. for comparing him to Mel Gib-racist-sexist-son.) The drama unfolds in an archetypal but satisfying way, and features a man who isn't what he thought he'd be when he grew up and a woman in the same boat. She's also 'the one that got away' and he hasn't quite given up. All the clever banter that moves between them gets interrupted now and again by ugly moments made all the more ugly for being couched in what is seemingly a comedy.

Anywho, I must talk about Tarantino factor now because Kiss Kiss has a definite post-Tarantino vibe to it. That might be good or bad depending on your feelings toward the big T, but the echoes of his post-modern style are of course here to stay in cinema, and he's oft emulated and never matched. Kiss Kiss manages to do better than most on that front, which is surprising given that it goes further where Tarantino tends to wisely stop: while T-man's movies are culturally referential and draw attention to cinema as being deliberate representations or constructions, his movies never quite become aware of themselves. With the exception, I think, of Kill Bill, they don't stop and say "Hey, I'm a movie." Kiss Kiss is aware of itself. Downey works as a cheeky narrator who openly acknowledges that you're watching a film. Characters namedrop their favourite movies from time to time, letting you know that it was written by someone who considers themselves pretty fairly steeped in movie-culture. While this can easily become trite, it manages here to add something wistful and idealistic. Something that speaks about our desires and where we place them.

Lastly, I always get a kick out of Val Kilmer, and his role as Gay Perry, a tough and unrelentingly acerbic counterpart to Downey is a treat to watch. I kind of want a movie about Gay Perry.

So: A meta, stylish, and funny bit of wish-fulfillment. Val Kilmer rules.

Pose Reviews A Movie. #3: A Serious Man (2009)

The Coen Brothers have done it again.

It’s amazing to me how those boys can not only churn out solid movie after solid movie, but that they can do it so quickly. The Brothers Coen are currently on an unstoppable three-year winning streak, having released No Country for Old Men in 2007, Burn After Reading in 2008, A Serious Man in 2009. (And the forthcoming True Grit is set for release this year.) It’s extremely impressive that not only are Joel and Ethan (the affectionately nicknamed “two-headed director”) quality filmmakers, but they’re also incredibly efficient. But A Serious Man does not come off as rushed or poorly thought-out, despite being the Coens’ third film in as many years. In fact, it’s nothing short of exceptional.

The key to watching this particular cinematic endeavor is an appreciation for dark comedy. Reeeal dark. The film can come off as a fairly colossal downer without this perspective, since it centres around a protagonist, Larry Gopnik (played flawlessly by Michael Stuhlbarg), whose life is slowly going to hell in a hand basket.

Actually, scratch that. A breadbasket.

Nah, that’s still a little small. His life is going to hell in a wooden keg.

Without giving too much away, Larry Gopnik is facing divorce, career sabotage, and mountainous financial trouble, while his brother and son add to his burdens with problems of their own. It doesn’t sound particularly uplifting, but there’s comedic value in the way the film portrays Larry’s struggle, and in a way, there is almost humour to be found in the sheer volume of crap that he has to deal with. And that’s where A Serious Man becomes a profound statement on “life.”

I have to put “life” in quotation marks, because to describe something, anything, as being “about life” tends to sound stupid right out of the gate. But A Serious Man puts a lot of things in perspective as the film progresses, and can even be therapeutic in its implicit commentary on the (often confused) priorities of (often confused) North Americans.

Although the film is set in and around 1970, its message is timeless: shit happens. But it happens to everyone, and the magnitude of it is often misunderstood. The moment we can find humour in a situation like Larry Gopnik’s is the moment we can face our own struggles with a more level-headed outlook. Ironically, A Serious Man serves to encourage the viewer to take things a little less seriously.

But in addition to being an awesome life experience, A Serious Man is also a genuinely well-made movie. It is exceptionally cast, and functions as a charming period piece nodding nostalgically to suburban life in the 1970s. And the Coens definitely deserve that Best Original Screenplay nomination at the Oscars this year, even if Quentin Tarantino takes the win for Inglorious Basterds.

Overall, A Serious Man is a well-rounded, deeply layered piece of dark comedy with transferable value to everyday “life.” I’d highly recommend it, and I think you should probably watch it tonight.

Seriously.