492 Best Releases From the Genre Comedy (Page 6)

It’s hard to do something genuinely awful with The Muppets. Yes, it's true, even if The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz certainly gave that a try. These pop culture icons are so innately endearing in their personalities and so fully realized as glorious puppets that figures like Kermit the Frog or Gonzo feel extremely real. Whether they’re shilling for coffee, reciting the words of Charles Dickens, or realizing that life truly is a filet of fish, The Muppets are irresistible.   Continue Reading →

The first season of The Other Two followed down-on-their-luck Dubek siblings Cary (Drew Tarver) and Brooke (Heléne Yorke) as their teen popstar brother rose to international fame status as popstar Chase Dreams (Case Walker). Season 2 followed their mom, Pat (Molly Shannon), as the suburban mom became a beloved talk-show host. After a two-year wait, Season 3 finds Cary and Brooke gaining their own fame and success. However, the industry’s rigors take their toll. It’s a brilliantly existential comedic satire on the levels of fame as the Dubek family and friends deal with the success and failures of their star-studded lifestyle.  Continue Reading →

Ticking clocks come in many shapes and forms in movies. In the case of writer/director Rebecca Zlotowski's new film Other People's Children, a ticking clock looms large over protagonist Rachel (Virginie Efira) in the form of how long she can still conceive children. Now 40, she's been informed by medical professionals that time is slipping away if she still wants to have kids. It’s a development that reshapes her priorities and hammers home the finite nature of her very existence. Continue Reading →

Betty Gilpin is a dramatic arts treasure. Capable of ringing tears or laughs out of any situation she deserves all her flowers and more. She is so good, her portrayal of Sister Simone nearly pulls Mrs. Davis across into great television. Continue Reading →

When it comes to prestige limited streaming series, horror movies (especially of the more grotesque persuasion) don’t tend to be common fodder. But with Rachel Weisz at the helm, Prime Video’s latest thriller series, Dead Ringers, looks to David Cronenberg’s 1988 film of the same name. Though undoubtedly a formidable showcase for Weisz, who pulls double duty as twins Elliot and Beverly, Dead Ringers struggles to remain fresh and interesting, often overstaying its welcome and retreading familiar territory. Admittedly, swapping the genders of its protagonists makes for an interesting approach to the subject matter. But Dead Ringers lacks the killer instincts and stylistic flair that makes the film so fondly remembered. Continue Reading →

You ever have a really great orgasm? Like so strong it sends you into an entirely different dimension? Now imagine that’s not a metaphor. Welcome to the premise of creator-writer-director-star Zoe Lister-Jones’ Slip. Continue Reading →

The theme music is gone. Continue Reading →

The modern age of streaming shows has delivered countless programs that boast in their press releases about being “just long movies.” The new Netflix limited series Florida Man continues this trend. Worse, it puts its own insufferable spin on the mold by stretching out a late-1990s Quentin Tarantino knock-off to nearly seven hours of storytelling. Yearning for a return to the era of non-linear crime dramas embracing the notion that F-bombs and shady behavior turn the story into the new Reservoir Dogs? This Donald Todd-created series will make you giddy. Unfortunately, everyone else will likely come away irritated.   Continue Reading →

If there’s anything Ari Aster wants you to understand after watching his newest film, it’s that he’s funny. With just three feature films under his belt, Beau Is Afraid marks both a massive departure from his previous films and a solidifying of his style. It’s a movie about terror, without a ton of interest in being terrifying. More specifically, it’s a movie about the absurdity of fear and the ridiculousness of human nature. And yeah, it’s definitely about moms, too. Continue Reading →

There's always been something of the vampiric in the acting style of Nicolas Cage; his dark, intense eyes, his hunched gaze, his predilection for sinking his teeth into the scenery as vociferously as he might an unsuspecting jugular. And yet, it's wild to think he's never played a gen-you-wine bloodsucker before now. Sure, there's Vampire's Kiss, the great 1988 dark comedy in which he played a manic '80s business guy who imagines himself to be one -- but those were more the panicked neuroses of your typical self-destructive Cage protagonist. But in Chris McKay's action-horror-comedy Renfield, he's the real pale deal: Count Dracula himself, complete with velvet capes, a mouth full of fangs, and an unquenchable thirst for hemoglobin. Continue Reading →

Everyone has a secret or two. They’re usually fairly innocuous. A crush you’d never admit to, drinking the last cup of coffee and not making more, that time you ate candy from the display when you worked retail and didn’t pay for it. Most people’s secrets would never hurt a soul.   Continue Reading →

When a show enters its final season, it has an opportunity to decide what it really wants to say. And what The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel wants to say is this: For all her tenacity, Susie (Alex Borstein) genuinely cares about the people in her orbit, especially her first client. For all that he's been a presumptuous prick, Joel (Michael Zegen) has become a better man. For all his professorial condescension, Abe (Tony Shalhoub) realizes how wrong he's been about so many things. And for all her immense talent and unflappable air, Midge (Rachel Brosnahan) must and will scratch and claw to get the chances denied her because of her gender and prove that this isn't just a phase; it's who she was meant to be.  Continue Reading →

It takes a little while to find Beef’s groove. This critic assures you that this is not the classic of the streaming age, “give it a few episodes” warning. By the end of the first episode, you will know if the series is for you. However, everything about the show feels overwhelming in the first eight to ten minutes. Continue Reading →

If you belonged to a certain group of very online Millennials around 2011, then the chances that a Dear Sugar letter changed your life or permanently lodged itself in your brain are high. I know it’s certainly true for me. That means I’m carrying a certain degree of baggage to Hulu’s newest series, Tiny Beautiful Things, based on the book of the same name--a collection of Dear Sugar’s best advice columns)--and Sugar herself, Cheryl Strayed, who stepped forward as the columnist in 2012.  Continue Reading →

It’s been almost 40 years since that little plumber in the red hat jumped into a warp pipe and into our hearts. Super Mario Bros., released for the original Nintendo system in the US in 1985, is still the perfect video game. It’s simple (you just got to jump around), it has iconic music, and its colorful world is hypnotic even with all those cute creatures trying to kill you. Continue Reading →

Our final SXSW 2023 dispatch features a diverse selection of documentaries and features focusing on the search for a sense of place in a chaotic world. The title of Petter Ringbom and Marquise Stillwell’s dazzling documentary, The World Is Not My Own, could be the epigraph for this year’s South by Southwest Film Festival. Each film I saw was about people trying to find their place in the material or metaphysical world. They are about the things we share and reject in our societies. They are about the spirits and forces that live amongst us. We come into an already-made world organized by institutions. If you’re lucky, you’ll find your fit. But for many of the artists behind and within these films, it’s easier to make a world of their own. Ringbom and Stillwells’ film opens on a world of miniatures. With a dash of CGI, a wise woman in her magical garden comes to life. Switching between this recreated world and contemporary Atlanta, their documentary about Black folk artist Nellie Mae Rowe (1900-1982) honors the late legend and her times by celebrating her connection to a place and community. Alongside the multitude of mediums Nellie worked in - plastic, paper, textiles, and chewing gum, Stillwell and Ringbom always return to the historical events that shaped Nellie and, thus, her art. Continue Reading →

When you insert the Blu-Ray of Schlock, John Landis’s 1973 directorial debut, the first thing that comes up—even before the menus—is a brief clip of Landis himself informing you of the film you are about to watch. He concludes by sheepishly adding, “I’m sorry.”  Continue Reading →

There’s been no shortage of pieces lately decrying the state of the romcom—is it on life support? Dead? In danger? If you’ve been lamenting the dearth of gems like You’ve Got Mail and Bridget Jones’s Diary, then Hulu has good news for you with its release of director Raine Allen-Miller’s feature debut: Rye Lane. It’s a quick and quippy romp through London’s Peckham neighborhood as two heartbroken twentysomethings bond over breakups and, far more deliciously, how to get back at their rotten exes. It’s a return to form that doesn’t feel stuck in the past. Rather, it’s a joyful reminder of why everyone loves a rom-com to begin with.  Continue Reading →

Unstable appears to be a deeply personal show for lead actor and co-creator Rob Lowe. After all, it revolves around a father/son duo played by Lowe and his real-life son, John Owen Lowe. Rob Lowe’s headlined worse stuff than this, for sure. Nonetheless, you’d think a series that seems rooted in something this personal would be more engaging to watch. At least, it might take some bold swings. Tragically, Unstable is a mostly just average comedy that leaves little in the way of an impression for good or ill.  Continue Reading →

As Melissa (Cicely Strong) explicitly points out, the musicals that inspired the first season of Schmigadoon! were all of a relatively similar happy-go-lucky and “they all lived happily ever after” cloth. Her attempt to return to that mystical world with her now husband Josh (Keegan-Michael Key) in Schmigadoon! Season 2 takes them instead to Schmicago. It is another mythic town that mirrors musicals, but this time out, it’s the shows of the 60s and 70s. The Broadway shows of that era were darker, more complex, more violent, and far less likely to deliver a happy ending. That, paired with their motivation to flee the drudgery of day-to-day life and the heartbreak of infertility, means escaping will take something far more challenging to find than “love.” Continue Reading →

When I come out of a movie, I have a fairly good idea of whether I liked it, and if I would recommend it to anyone. In the case of Smoking Causes Coughing, the latest work from Quentin Dupieux, the French provocateur behind such cult oddities as Rubber (2010), Deerskin (2019) and Mandibles (2020), I'm not entirely sure I could describe it as a proper film in the first place. Continue Reading →