reviews
Short Notes on: Goodbye Lenin!, Napoleon Dynamite, The Saddest Music in the World, Shrek 2, The Stepford Wives, White Chicks, and Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!
Even though the Karaoke reviewing nightmare is over with there are still many films left that have passed without comment. You've perhaps already sung along to that review of the embarrassing Laws of Attraction, but 2004 has pumped out at least one even worse comedy (imagine!) as well as several superior ones. Herewith capsule reviews of the funnies of 2004 listed in descending order of how much they made me laugh...
The Saddest Music in the World
Comedy Style: A bizarre Variety Special for the hipster set.
The Wacky Plot: A beer baroness holds a self-promotional contest to determine which country has the saddest music in the world. Her ex-lover, who wants the prize money, arrives in town to complicate matters.
Best Bit: I won't give it away if you haven't seen the movie but it takes place the very first time someone wins in the title contest tournament (which is like the Olympics for depressed nations.) This joke, a surreal goof, is repeated several times but is so demented and inspired that it doesn't get old quickly. I also got quite a kick out of Isabella Rossellini's haughty & naughty sexuality as an amputee businesswoman. She enjoys stroking her artifical legs as much as you'll enjoy watching her crazy-ass star turn.
Not Funny at all: The length. Even at a scant 99 minutes it's more than a little redundant.
Overall Rating: B-The Stepford Wives
Comedy Style: Satirical with way-too-easy targets and oversized theatrics.
The Wacky Plot: Oh come on. You know this already.
Best Bit: The film is nothing special and often apparently confused about its own raison d'etre, there are good sized laughs. These come mostly courtesy of some zingers in Paul Rudnick's screenplay and the mouthpiece glee of the supporting performers --they're having a ball with their roles: Bette Midler kills as a bohemian writer, Roger Bart has his merry way as a flamboyant decorator (yes, he's playing at that again) and Glenn Close, as the desperately smiling burb's queen, steals the show.
Not Funny at all: The story which is muddled and contradictory. The leads also fare poorly. Nicole Kidman and Matthew Broderick aren't given the good lines and they don't seem to devote themselves fully to the comedy within each scene.
Overall Rating: C
Shrek 2
Comedy Style: Pop culture reference compendium and/or the movie equivalent of those one-panel comics in the funny pages.
The Wacky Plot: Fiona and Shrek are married. Now it's time to Meet the Parents....Ben Stiller isn't in this one. But the cat gets the bulk of the laughs in this movie, too.
Best Bit: These films aren't so much funny as allusively winking. But, that said, Puss n Boots, superbly drawn by the animators and devilishly voiced by Antonio Banderas is easily the highlight of an otherwise limp fairy tale. The film is casually guffaw-free when he's absent. Still, there are chuckles throughout and overall this is superior to the original film...or at least not as hypocritical in its messaging.
Not Funny at All: Jennifer Saunders as the Fairy Godmother. And I say that with genuine surprise since she's a laugh-factory in her television endeavors.
Overall Grade: C+Win a Date with Tad Hamilton
Comedy Style: Mostly of the innocuous romantic comedy variety but a bit sneaky and cheeky for the genre.
The Wacky Plot: A checkout girl wins a date with a handsome movie star much to the chagrin of her manager who secretly loves her.
Best Bit: Topher Grace, who as I remarked in the halfway through article is operating on a higher performance plane than the rest of this cast, has a couple of truly fine comedic moments, my favorite scene taking place rather inappropriately in a men's bathroom.
Not Funny at All: The twin-monikered agents played by Sean Hayes and Nathan Lane. A joke doesn't seem to work and the actors --both of whom tend to be hilarious in very small doses but aren't nearly as funny as they think they are --don't find a way to sell it here.
Overall Rating: B-
Goodbye Lenin!
Comedy Style: Soulful social satire.
The Wacky Plot: A doting son tries to save his mother's life (she has a weak heart) after she awakens from a coma by erasing all signs that Germany has changed since before the fall of the Berlin wall.
Best Bit: It's not so much a laugh riot as a continually pleasing and smart comedy. The surreal sight of a flying Lenin statue is the most indelible and inspired visual joke.
Not Funny at All: The detour in the last act as the focus shifts to the previously absent father. Too much for one film to handle, I think, though the story is lovingly handled throughout and moving as a result.
Overall Grade: B+
Napoleon Dynamite
Comedy Style: Affected, deadpan, broad; a laugh-at-the-dorks cult film.
The Wacky Plot: Napoleon Dynamite campaigns for his friend Pedro to be the next Student President in a high school where they are both continually shunned.
Best Bit: Well, Idaho sure is funny looking. Well, isn't it? But seriously, the best jokes are all visual though the repetitive dialogue will be given the most credit should the movie succeed: "Sweeeeeet."
Not Funny at All: The mean spirited tone. One gets the sense that the filmmakers hearts aren't truly into the sorta wish-fulfillment finale...just the continual humiliation that precedes it. These nerds aren't the type that ever get revenge.
Overall Grade: C-
White Chicks
Comedy Style: Toilet bowl.
The Wacky Plot: Two black FBI agents dress up as two white trust-fund bitches and infiltrate their world in the Hamptons to prevent a kidnapping. Or something. I lost track of the plot.
Best Bit: Though the film is relentless in its unfunniness, I will give limited props to Terry Crews who manages to make one line reading in particular --upon discovering that the chick is not really a chick and is not really white either, funnier than it had any right to be. Or maybe I was almost chuckling out of anticipatory joy that the film was about to end?
Not Funny at All: White Chicks
Overall Grade: F
All reviews and commentary by Nathaniel R.
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