Talking Funny

You may be wondering, “Wasn’t Talking Funny promoted in the 2011 season of the Daily Show? Doesn’t that mean you don’t have to review it?” Yes, that’s true, I don’t have to. But on Friday night I happened to watch it, and I also happened to need something to review for this week, so it worked out all around.

Talking Funny, an HBO special created by Ricky Gervais, consists of Gervais, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, and Louis C.K. sitting around and talking about comedy for about 45 minutes. However, despite the title, Talking Funny is just not funny. Granted, I don’t know that humor is its intention; instead of making jokes, the four comedians talk about standup, how they got involved, and their take on the trade.

To be honest, I was disappointed. Though their discussions were interesting enough, when four of my favorite comedians are together, I want to hear some jokes, damn it! Also, Seinfeld came across as pretty self-involved and arrogant—and not in a funny, intentional way like Gervais does. And sometimes the conversation wasn’t that engaging (who cares whether or not Rock does a sound check?). Neither funny nor interesting? No thank you!

There’s really not that much to say about the special; it was okay, worth the 45 minutes it took to watch, but not that much more. It gets a 2/5. However, if you’re looking for some great stuff by these comedians, catch an episode of Seinfeld or Louie (the best rated TV show in Daily Shill history), watch Chris Rock’s documentary Good Hair, or watch one of Gervais’s “Out of England” comedy specials.

Watch Jon Stewart's interview with Ricky Gervais

Grown Ups

You’d think, as I’m a huge Saturday Night Live fan, that I would be thrilled to see the guys from the cast of the early 90s get together for a movie. But here’s the thing, out of those guys, I truly dislike two (Adam Sandler and David Spade) feel neutral-leaning-to-dislike towards one (Rob Schneider) and like one (Chris Rock). Throw in yet another guy I could care less about (Kevin James) and you get Grown Ups, a comedy with too many leads and not enough laughs.

The premise: all these fellas were on a middle school basketball team that won a championship. Though they’ve drifted apart in their adult lives, when this coach dies, they all reunite at his funeral. (Let me drift away from the synopsis for a just a second here to talk about the implausibility of this whole situation. We’re talking about a middle school basketball team here. Could you tell me the first name of your middle school basketball coach? Would you go to his funeral? Also, this coach seemed to have no other friends/family other than the kids who were on this team. He asks that Sandler give his eulogy, Schneider sings a song—what about his children and loved ones? Hell, what about the other basketball teams he coached? – he did get a new one each year. This bothered me for the entire movie…clearly).

So these guys each bring their entire family out to this funeral for this guy they once knew, and, Sandler, feeling nostalgic, rents this lakehouse for them all to stay at. And each of these guys, of course, has their own family issues. Sandler is crazy-rich and his children are spoiled brats; Spade is a womanizer who’s never settled down; Schneider has married an old hippy (and has been a terrible father to his three grown daughters); Rock’s wife is pregnant and he has a crazy mother-in-law who lives with him; James is low on cash (and his wife still breast-feeds his 6-year-old son). Basically comedy waiting to happen…or at least that’s what these guys thought.

But the comedy didn’t pull through for me; most of it was on the fart joke caliber and the funniest line (“I want to get chocolate wasted”) was featured in the film’s trailer. Plus, I just wasn’t able to feel for any of the main characters because there were just too many of them. I couldn’t tell you a single character’s name because each family was only given a minute or two of introduction. After that, the movie is old guys trying to relieve their glory days by doing stupid stuff. And yes, that last sentence refers both to the plot of the film and its creation.

As you might expect, I’m giving Grown Ups a 1/5. If you’re a big Sandler and crew fan, maybe you’d like it, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Adam Sandler & Chris Rock

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Death at a Funeral

Death at a Funeral is a movie filled with zillions of characters, each with his orher own problems, who are all thrown together at a family funeral. Here’s just a sampling: Aaron (Chris Rock) is saddled with the burden of planning and paying for his father’s funeral while his younger brother Ryan (Martin Lawrence) gets all the admiration from family without doing anything. Elaine (Zoe Saldana) is planning on revealing to the family that she is going to marry her boyfriend Oscar (James Marsden), but accidently gives him LSD, which causes him to hallucinate and act inappropriately. Norman (Tracy Morgan) has been given the responsibility for looking after crotchety Uncle Russell (Danny Glover). And then there’s the mysterious little person who appears at the funeral, revealing something about Aaron’s father that his family never knew.

That’s just a fraction of the many plotlines that Death at a Funeral puts forward. Unfortunately, I did not find the majority of them to be funny. Watching Marsden’s trip and the chaos it caused was the only part of the movie that made me laugh; generally, the jokes were lowest common denominator. Additionally, though Rock is an excellent comedian, his serious acting left more to be desired – much of his delivery sounded like emotionless reading.

Though Death at a Funeral’s glut of characters and situations took away from the movie as a whole, it kept the time moving quickly. Even though I wasn’t really enjoying it, I didn’t find myself counting the minutes until the movie was finished. Still, I wouldn’t recommend it. It gets a 2/5.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Tracy Morgan (This is a funny one. For some reason, Morgan reminds me so much of my paternal grandfather in this clip. I know that's irrelevant, but since many of the people who read this are my relatives, I figured I'd put it out there.)

Buy the DVD