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No Hard Feelings (2023)
Finally! A funny comedy, it's been, like YEARS!
I'd heard about the nudity in No Hard Feelings before I heard about the actual movie, so I wasn't necessarily expecting a laugh out loud comedy as I assumed the nudity was the actual selling feature. I was wrong.
In this day & age, sex & nudity isn't hard to access but good comedy is definitely rare. I'm definitely at the age (57) where I really just want to be entertained and laugh. After I saw the trailer, my expectations grew; Jennifer Lawrence IS naturally funny and quick witted in real life (from the interviews I've seen) and she definitely has developed strong comedy chops. Needless to say they are on full display in No Hard Feelings and I'd hope to see her do more films like this. Lawrence paired with Aubrey Plaza, Melissa McCarthy, Kristin Wiig, Tina Fey etc would be dynamite, as long as Fey & co wrote the script.
The farfetched premise, rich helicopter parents want to hire a girl to turn their shy, nerdy introverted son into a "man" so he can gain some confidence before college, is as outlandish & somewhat predictable as it is thin, but this isn't a documentary so just go with it.
At this stage of her career, Lawrence certainly doesn't have to do nudity but she does it on her terms and it's classic. Not going to spoil it. Andrew Barth Feldman who plays the hapless & love lost Percy is the perfect stooge against Lawrence's cougar-esque Maddie. Percy's dad, Laird, played by Matthew Broderick, & Laura Benanti as Allison, Percy's mom, are a tad one dimensional but they're there to provide the premise with the macguffin being a used Buick, but it works. Former SNL's Kyle Mooney's cameo provides a lot of chuckles and he certainly left me wanting more.
The comedy heavily relies on Lawrence trying to be sexy but coming off way too strong. That's not to say Lawrence isn't sexy, of course she is, but it's how that level of female sexual aggressiveness just doesn't land with the Minecraft & Fortnite generation, no matter how many Rule 34 videos they've watched based on their favourite animated shows. They're woefully under prepared for that level of hotness...and therefore hilarity ensues. And it actually does! The plot attempts to give the characters more emotional depth by revealing their backstory's which succeeds to a degree. It's not entirely heavy-handed thank goodness which could have thrown the balance if the movie off.
There's laughs and heart to bring the story to its completion and I'm not going to lie, I felt a post-credit scene set in the future would have been nice. All in all, a nice surprise and from what I can remember one of the best comedy's in recent memory. Come for the nudity, stay for the laughs!
I Love That for You (2022)
I Love This For Me
I don't think I'm the target audience by a long shot - I'm a 55 year old straight married white dude with adult kids. BUT here's the deal; I LOVE smart comedies with sharp writing, high production values, and strong ensemble casts; ILTFY checks all those boxes.
The first time I saw Vanessa Bayer on SNL I was like, "I'm witnessing comedy royalty here". Even though SNL didn't waste her talents like Tim Robinson (who later killed in his show I Think You Should Leave), it's clear Bayer was cut out for much more than SNL. This show allows Bayer to dig deeper into cringe humour and some reviewers don't seem to understand the psychology of awkwardness on display with Joanna Gold. Desperately trying to fit in, and without a stable foundation of self esteem Gold vacillates between a foul-mouthed hipster and awkward introvert, much like a red-haired Zelig. She's living a lie in almost every facet of her life because she doesn't really know who she is. Yet. Much like the products she hawks on TV, she's trying on different personalities to see which one brings her the most success & happiness. Hopefully we get S2 to see more of that journey revealed.
While ILTFY isn't perfect, S1 has been consistently funny & entertaining. With such a fantastic ensemble cast - no one is wasted and everyone brings something wild to the table - I'd think S2 should be guaranteed.
I see no reason why ILTFY would not be recognized for the comic brilliance it truly possesses down the road. Remember it took a few years for Seinfeld to catch on or Arrested Development to become so beloved. I'm hoping Bayer's show gets its chance. But if for some terribly unfair reason it doesn't, I have no doubt in my mind, we haven't seen the last of her.
Daredevil (2015)
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
As a long time fan of Daredevil (comics) but decidedly cool on the 2003 Ben Affleck movie, I was cautiously optimistic that Marvel and Netflix could pull off a compelling "TV" series. I had faith in Marvel and I had faith in Netflix, but it was the concept that I wasn't sure would transfer. After all the entertainment world has seen a few of these "human hero" types who fight crime with their wits and their incredible martial arts / trained in a secret Ninja monastery for X amount of time like Batman on the big screen and Green Arrow on the small one. Does the world really need another show based on a guy in a suit? Answer: Absolutely, if it's done this well.
Another way to describe this show would be to simply call it "Daredevil Begins" and we'd all understand what that means. The entire first season is an origin story as we see characters fleshed out, abilities increase, villains exposed and the world of Hell's Kitchen come to life, rotting underbelly and all. But unlike Batman in Nolan's first movie, Matt Murdock's angry alter- ego doesn't get his act together that quickly and the process of watching him grow into NYC's Most Improved Hero is fascinating on all counts.
The idea of Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer who fights crime by day legally and then takes the law into his own hands by night as a costumed vigilante is perhaps one of literature's greatest dichotomies. It doesn't get any better than that in terms of secret identity / hero. The stories write themselves and kudos to creators Stan Lee, Bill Everett and Jack Kirby for introducing the world to "The Man Without Fear".
Everything you loved from the comic books is present and accounted for including flashbacks to DD's true origin, Matt's conflicted Catholic heritage, and Battlin' Jack Murdock to name a few and I'm hoping we see a few new super villains in the next season. No, not Stilt Man.
In Daredevil viewers get to experience a couple of wet behind the ears lawyers (Matt Murdock) and his partner Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) start their practise from scratch. Comic fans will recognize the name of Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), but how she comes into Murdock and Nelson's world fires off the starting gun in this manic race to the finish.
Vincent D'Onofrio's Wilson Fisk AKA Kingpin is a gigantic force of nature who casts an enormous shadow over Hell's Kitchen figuratively and literally. It would have been easy to make him a one- dimensional villain but D'Onofrio's under-stated yet powerful delivery make him seem larger- than-life and terrifyingly real simultaneously.
Where DD really excels is the excellent fight scenes, which while few and far between at first, are brutally realistic. These aren't shaky cam, quick edit brawls but well-paced, shockingly aggressive battles that seem like they could end at any time with an outcome you're not expecting. That in and of itself is a testament to the high quality of DD.
With subtle nods to the MCU (why do you think there is such a construction boom in NYC?) DD is a white-knuckle ride that shows that Marvel knows best when it comes to its properties. If they can take a fledgling C list hero like Iron Man and make him the king of Pop Culture, (let's face it, that's exactly what Tony Stark and his tin can suit was before 2008) imagine what they can do for some of their most interesting characters? Daredevil on Netflix is a darn good example of how many F's Marvel does give when it comes to their own. DD's in good hands and fans can just sit back and enjoy the show.
Mike Tyson Mysteries (2014)
A TKO on All Fronts
To say I went into Mike Tyson Mysteries looking for quality entertainment and laughs would be completely overstating it. Yes, I recognized immediately that this cartoon looked to be in the same vein as WB's earlier "Space Ghost" and"Harvey Birdman" while existing within a satire of Scooby Doo. I didn't even bother to read the synopsis; I just pressed Play on the Netflix button.
And from there, I proceeded to laugh, out loud and without breath, for almost 10 minutes straight.
Mike Tyson Mysteries knows exactly what it is and what it wants to be. Personally I think it's rare when you have a vision in mind and then you actually see it evolve from conception to completion with it being exactly as you had intended. I suspect that the creators of MTM might have surpassed even their expectations.
MTM is absurd, irreverent, ridiculous and hilarious. It's everything I wanted it to be and it's now shot to the top of my list as one of the funniest cartoons I've ever seen in my 48 years on the planet.
I'm not going to discuss the animation, plots or voice acting or even bother to tell you who's in it, besides Mike Tyson.
Sometimes you have to just press Play for yourself.
Lucky Louie (2006)
The Evolution of Sitcoms
Lucky Louie arrived in my life as a dream sequence. One day last year I had a vague memory of flipping through the channels and seeing a snippet of this really vulgar but hilarious sitcom filmed in front of what seemed like a live studio audience. It seemed like a false memory or a great dream, as where in the hell would I have seen something like that? NBC? CBS? ABC? Definitely not. So I passed it off as something that would be a really cool idea to do one day - that is, if I ever get off my ass and write that sitcom, try to get it picked up and then attempt to get the big wigs at NBC to let be as vulgar as what my imagination had seemingly conjured up.
I came across a clip of Lucky Louie on Youtube and it all came flooding back: the sitcom was real and it was hilarious. Not hilarious in a Seinfeld or Arrested Development way, but in a way that is hard to define. It's not funny because it's vulgar; that's not the point. It's funny because it makes you question every sitcom line ever delivered from Lucy to Charlie Sheen. It's funny because it's the first and only sitcom that you'll ever see that literally could be your life that day. It's funny because while it's turning convention on its head and destroying decades of sitcom pap, it's doing it while in the guise of "filmed in front of a live audience" sitcom pap.
Fast forward to now and me, being a huge fan of Louis CK stand-up and his Louis show, I started watched Lucky Louie. Lucky Louie as a sitcom makes more sense now then it most likely did back when it aired in 2006. To me, Lucky Louie exists outside our reality. It is a sitcom that would be playing on a TV in the background of Louis' current show. It pushes the boundaries of our television experiences and allows us to see how ludicrous "TV sitcom reality" really is. Sitcom reality is nothing like reality "reality" but Lucky Louie manages to be a bridge between what TV was/is and what it could/should be. The fact that it features many of the same actors as the current Louis show, makes the existence of the sitcom Lucky Louie even more "meta".
It's extremely unfortunate that the sitcom only lasted one season. Many shows are touted as "ahead of its time" but Lucky Louie is ahead of its time by quite possibly centuries. I have no idea when or if America will be ready to see something as profane and funny during prime-time. I can only assume when that time comes, say, oh the year 2278, someone will say "Finally! A sitcom that really tells it like it is!" but someone will dig out Lucky Louie and say "Check this out. It's from 2006." And at that moment, history will recognize Louis CK's brilliance and he will become The Shakespeare of the future. I can only hope.
Watch this show and watch Louis. They're a packaged deal.