Last movie you watched......

Wrapped around a review of The Happytime Murders, A really good piece on the decline in comedies - both in quality and box office performance.

The 2018 Comedy Death Spiral: ‘The Happytime Murders’ Is One of the Worst Movies of the Year

I think a big part of the drought is that most movie comedies look the same - typically shot in Atlanta, with material that would barely fill out a 7-minute sketch on SNL, written by the same half-dozen writers and featuring former SNLers or Kevin Hart.
Mostly I think the younger, fresher comedians are doing shows or specials on Netflix or Comedy Central. Also, I think the R-rated comedy - for the sake of "being" an R-rated comedy is played out.

 

Reviews for Happytime .... are alll terrible.

 

Sure - just thought the analysis of recent comedies was pretty good. Kevin Hart is probably the "youngest" comedic actor leading movies and he's 39, Most comedies seem to be skewing above 30 with cast leads who are over 40. Which is odd considering the bulk of movie audiences is 14-22 or so. Where are the movie comedies that feature leads in their 20s? Who was the last person to break out of SNL?

 

Now "Game Night" gives me hope. It wasn't much of a plot and fairly predictable, yet every performance was great. Funniest I've ever seen McAdams. She and Bateman should team up again. "I couldn't find any rubbing alcohol or whiskey, but I did find this lovely Chard." And seeing Kyle Chandler and Jesse Plemons playing against type, was fun. Who would have thought the actor with the biggest post FNL career would be Plemons? Shoot he's worked with Spielberg (twice), did Fargo and Breaking Bad, he was great in The Program as Floyd Landis and Black Mass with Depp. and Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master) And he's got a Scorsese film in the can where he is a co-lead with DeNiro and Pacino and is appearing with The Rock in Jungle Cruise.
He just turned 30 and had a kid with Kirsten Dunst. He's doing something right.

 

Blockers is pretty funny. Couple of gross-out moments. As good as if not better than Game Night.

 

Doesn't he get negative points for Battleship?

 

Crazy Rich Asians; yeah big surprise.

Very emotional to see Asians given the opportunity to portray on the big screen the ultra-rich protagonists, both male and female and every other supporting role without being limited to the typical stereotyped Asian roles, you know, "the cute Asian girlfriend", the martial arts expert, the socially awkward, smart, quiet engineer. but here the primary male lead who's rich, fawned over, and is attractive to all. Males who are strong and can buy anything, whenever they want. Strong females who control billion dollar spending power.

As Kelly Tran discussed, the Asians here are the main course, not just the outsiders struggling to be noticed in the margins.

As for the movie itself, I'll beg off and let others review because my biases are coloring my view.

 

Saw Denial last night, a powerful, well acted film, that I think many of you would appreciate.

I'm surprised it didn't get more attention when it was released.

Denial (2016 film) - Wikipedia

 

Fun oral history of The Naked Gun's baseball scene. It finally explains (in real life, at least) why the Angels and Mariners were playing at Dodger Stadium.

'It's Enrico Pallazzo!': The inside story of 'The Naked Gun' baseball game | Sporting News

 

Blackkklansman

Great movie. Hate plays the central role, and it's in your face from beginning to end. It'll make you really consider how white supremacy is a cancer in American society.

 

Catching up on all of my 2014 movies so I watched Ex Machina last night. Enjoyable.

 

I need to watch Ex Machina again. That was a fantastic piece of science fiction.