Horror and comedy are two of the most popular movie genres, one is on the up-and-up (especially this time of year) and the other has been relegated straight to streaming for years now. Horror and comedy, like primary color, create new colors when you mix them. The duo creates a subgenre that on paper should not work: how can you freak someone out and make them laugh simultaneously? Well, dozens of filmmakers at this point have cracked that code and now we have dozens of great movies from them. Here is how it started. Continue reading Bloody Funny: Horror-Comedy
Tag Archives: Comedy
Poll: What’s Your Favorite Back To School Movie?
Now that we’re all back from vacation I can’t help but think of the phrase “misery loves company.” The sweet suffering that is back to back classes can only be soothed by watching the onscreen antics of our favorite characters. Which of the films below remind you that school isn’t that bad of a place to be?
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Hot Fuzz: A Scorching Good Time
The tragedy of comedy films is that very few hold up over the years. In many cases, a comedy can fall into the abyss of awkward silences, and stilted, forced laughs. Thankfully, such a fate hasn’t come over Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz (2007). With Coral Gables Art Cinema screening the film later this month, now was a good time for me to experience the film. I can comfortably say that as the second entry in Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s Three Flavors Cornetto trilogy, Hot Fuzz sits comfortably between Shaun of the Dead (2004) and The World’s End (2013) as one of the great comedy films produced in the last few years.
I Feel Pretty is Hideously Self-Absorbed
The idea that a woman in modern society can feel confident about her appearance and capable of success is apparently a foreign concept to the creators of Amy Schumer’s latest comedy film, I Feel Pretty. The film has faced some pretty harsh backlash from the release of its first trailer and I have to say, after watching the film, that it is absolutely deserved. This is a film which attempts to convince women to feel better about themselves and what they look like, but it doesn’t even believe in its own message.
The Square: Strange, But “It’s Art”
If a self-proclaimed lover of the arts doesn’t acknowledge how pretentious the world of art can be, they just might be a total hack. As the winner of this year’s Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival, the event’s highest honor, Ruben Ӧstlund’s The Square is a dissection of the human conscience, served with a dose of mockery directed at the pompous attitudes of the artistic world.
Black Dynamite: Explosively Ridiculous
As contradictory as it sounds, it’s difficult to make a film bad on purpose for the sake of parody. On top of needing to be cheesy and ironically bad, such a film needs to be genuinely well-made and well-written to boot. Films such as Airplane! (1981), This is Spinal Tap (1984), and Hot Fuzz (2007) are prime examples of a movie that’s made hokey and awkward on purpose. Similar to these films, Scott Sanders’ Black Dynamite (2009) is a parody of both action movies and the Blaxploitation films of the 1970s, which is not only completely self-aware in its ridiculousness, but has the quality to back it up.
REVIEW: The Trip to Spain Serves Up Laughs with a Curious Aftertaste
The third installment of Michael Winterbottom’s “Trip” series, The Trip to Spain is pleasant and genuinely funny, with darker undertones than its predecessors.
Continue reading REVIEW: The Trip to Spain Serves Up Laughs with a Curious Aftertaste