Weekly Comedy: It's A Shit, Shit, Shit, Shit Week

Holy hell, what did we do to deserve this?

So the feature-packed edition of one of the best comedy-nerd movies ever made comes out earlier than expected, and because the universe hates us all, there is also a mountain of unbelievable shit released in the same week.

This is the price we pay.

DVD

Funny People – A complex, surprisingly compelling and really unique drama-that-happened-to-also-be-really-funny about comedians that was misunderstood by a lot of people (and was, admittedly, flawed when it came to pacing). Absolutely the must-buy release of the week, if only for the ridiculous wealth of supplemental material included here.

It is also the lone bright spot this week. Fuck. FUCK.
COMEDY TOXIC WASTE

Old Dogs – I’m not sure if this is a sequel to the bullshit that was Wild Hogs but they’re sorta-kinda marketing it that way. Seth Green is in it for some reason. Seems to be geared toward the same middle-aged white guys who chortle their way through Two and a Half Men every week and beat off to The Real Housewives of Orange County.

Four Christmases – One of the most criminally unfunny holiday comedies ever. After this abortion and Couples Retreat, someone needs to go slap Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau and Peter Billingsley and tell them to please stop just making lame-ass easy comedies designed to appeal to the Sunday night Olive Garden crowd. These people were responsible for Swingers and Made, they can do a lot better than this safe, trite garbage.

Bill Engvall: Aged and Confused – Hey look it’s a new Bill Engvall special. Perhaps he will make jokes about his wife being a nag or his kids being a pain in the ass or how he just wants to crack a beer and watch some football. WHO KNOWS WHAT UNPREDICTABLE COMEDY GOLD HE HAS IN STORE

Larry the Cable Guy’s Hula-Palooza Christmas Luau

Larry the Cable Guy’s Hula-Palooza Christmas Luau

Larry the Cable Guy’s Hula-Palooza Christmas Luau

LARRY THE FUCKING CABLE GUY'S HULA-PALOOZA CHRISTMAS FUCKING LUAU

FFFFUUUUUUUCCCCKKKKKKKK

Comedy Is Dead Review: Funny People

Funny People is, above all things, a movie for comedians and the comedy nerds who love them and are fascinated by them. If you are either of those things, even the film’s 2.5 hour runtime will not phase you. In fact, it might not even feel like enough.

At its core, this film is a deeply personal exploration of the people and personalities that gravitate toward comedy as a career, with Adam Sandler’s character George Simmons (who is clearly designed to be a rough analogue for Sandler himself) as the almost numbingly selfish, self-hating, isolated epicenter of it all. It is often blisteringly hilarious, sometimes very touching, but mostly it’s just real and human and honest.

This film is a “comedy” only in the sense that it is about comedians and comic actors, who are all very funny in their day to day lives (some, naturally, more than others, which the film takes special care to point out), but overwhelmingly this is a very emotional film about a group of people who are, fundamentally, pretty fucked up emotionally, and that’s what drives them to do the very thing they live for. At times it feels like Judd Apatow has ripped his heart out and smeared it all over the screen; there’s that much emotional honesty in this thing.

The performances are all completely fantastic. It’s been mentioned dozens of times before, but this is the Adam Sandler of Punch Drunk Love rather than The Waterboy. He's playing “George Simmons”, the embittered, fabulously wealthy and utterly alone guy who stars in garbage exactly like The Waterboy (encapsulated here by a string of high-grossing, big-budget, totally shitty fake comedies like “Mer-Man” and “Re-Do”, films that do not represent who Simmons really is). Simmons finds out he’s terminally ill and decides to go back to standup comedy, and one night, after bombing horribly with a depressing set fueled by his sudden mortality, he hires Ira (played in three dimensions by a ratcheted-down Seth Rogen), a struggling standup comedian, to help him write material for the stage and be his personal assistant. The journey that follows – both physically and emotionally – is suitably described as “epic”, and not in the annoying internet sense of the word, but in the Laurence of Arabia sense.

All in all, it’s hard to describe Funny People as a ‘comedy’. It is, rather, a very funny drama about comedians. It’s also one of the most incredibly personal and utterly fascinating movies I’ve seen in a long time. For god’s sake, go see it.

Oh, and Maria Bamford and Brian Posehn are listed in the IMDB credits for this film but apparently didn't make the final cut. We hereby demand that Bamford and Posehn's scenes are included on the DVD, no matter how minor.

This Week in Comedy: Scott Baio Edition

It’s a banner week for releases, mostly because of what’s happening on Friday, and of course the momentous, celebratory release of the final season of Charles in Charge! That’s right, you Baioholics out there, the hilarious and touching final episodes of that classic internationally beloved sitcom are finally being released in pristine condition on DVD! REJOICE! REJOICE!

IN THEATERS

Funny People – For comedy nerds, this is the biggest movie of the summer, bigger than anything featuring transforming racist robots or teenage wizards in love. Judd Apatow’s 2.5 hour dramedy features virtually every great comic talent out there, including Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Jason Schwartzman, Ken Jeong, Andy Dick, Norm Macdonald, Maria Bamford, Brian Posehn, and of course Aziz Ansari as his now-infamous RAAAAAANDY character. Obviously we cannot wait to see this thing and we’ll have a full review up Friday.

DVD

Miss March – If you’re looking for “saddest DVD release of the week”, this is probably it. Written by and starring Trevor Moore and Zach Cregger from the increasingly hilarious and under-appreciated sketch series The Whitest Kids U Know, Miss March is a major letdown and has nary a funny moment in it, with Moore in particular playing a very grating “zany” character that just doesn’t work. It was their first feature, however, and it’s our hope that this one misfire doesn’t prevent them from giving it another shot. Thankfully, another season of Whitest Kids is on the way – season three had some absolute gems in it – so we can all put Miss March behind us.

Bart Got A Room – A little-seen (and by that we mean "seen by virtually no one") “quirky indie high school comedy” featuring William H. Macy and Cheryl Hines. Notably, it’s also the first performance in a feature film by YouTube celebrity movie re-enactor Brandon Hardesty, who is impossible to not at least like a little bit. It’s on DVD now, and will probably be available streaming soon if you’re so inclined.

Jim Breuer: Let’s Clear the Air – Are you a big Jim Breuer fan? Do you have the John Belushi Animal House poster up on your dorm room wall? Does your desk chair smell of bong water? Perhaps you’ve got tickets to the next Dave Matthews Band concert? Maybe your Chapelle’s Show DVDs are getting a little scratched up? Well, then wipe the crumbs from your shirt and get your ass down to Best Buy to pick up Jim Breuer’s latest Comedy Central special on DVD!

Charles in Charge Season 5 – This is the release you’re most looking forward to. ADMIT IT.