Category Archives: Comedy

Comedy, Drama, Imaginary Turkish Cinema, Science Fiction

#160 – Kuyruk, Bir (Tail, A)

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(2011, Tur, 99 min) Dir Ahmet Şen. Cast Nuri Kesal, Yılmaz Erdoğan, Cansu Demirci.

A whimsical, surreal little film in which everyone in the world wakes up one morning to find that overnight they have grown the tails of  animals – some have big green lizard’s tails, some have brightly feathered birds tails, some have twitching cat tails and some have a prehensile primate tail (which seems to be the least problematic and most useful of them all). The problem is that this kicks off a vast restructuring of the existing social norms – for example the President, who woke that day with a giant squirrel’s tail, is ousted from government by a cadre of monkey tails within his own party. All of this is seen from the perspective of young Nuri whose mother, a seamstress, is making a lot of money in the crisis from altering trousers. Previously a small fish in his school he has found his stock rising mightily now that he is in possession of a ferocious looking and potentially deadly scorpion’s tail. Of course if we learned anything from Spider-Man it’s the whole great power/greater responsibility thing and it’s the relationship between these two that guides Nuri’s story. A well-played, beautifully shot little film with surprisingly good practical effects for the tails, it’s only downfall is that it’s a little obvious in its allegorical intent. It was well received when it premiered in Sundance a couple of years ago but a wide release seems sadly unlikely by now. Worth tracking down.

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Comedy, Horror, Imaginary British Cinema

#159 – Back Again To Be Bad

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(2012, GB, 100 min) Dir Christopher Smith. Cast Reece Shearsmith, Peter Serafinowicz, Alexi Sayle, Julie Andrews.

Supernatural comedy. The Grand Order of the Everlasting Night had a foul plan – they were going to raise from the dead the most nefarious, bloodthirsty tyrants that history has to offer to wreck the most profound and unimaginable havoc on earth. From the four corners of the earth they summon Hitler, Stalin, Genghis Khan, Elizabeth Báthory and, by accident, Jim Morrison. The trouble is they have no idea what to do with them now that they have them, all five seemingly unable to raise dread armies at the drop of a hat and also a bit depressed at being reanimated. The solution? Bung them all in a remote Scottish cottage for the time being while a Plan B is hashed out. So Stalin and Hitler are continually fighting over the bedrooms, Genghis is making all sorts of odd smells in the kitchen, Báthory’s taking forever in the bathroom and Morrison refuses to tidy up. An equilibrium has yet to be reached when there is a knock at the door. It’s only Churchill, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, a not dead Julie Andrews and, by accident, the Big Bopper and they’re there to sort out the tyrants once and for all. Cheap, slapdash and hilarious with a very unexpected good sport cameo from Andrews.

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Comedy, Imaginary Norwegian Cinema

#157 – Djevlene! (Devils!)

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(2000, Nor, 98 min) Dir Tomas Dakk. Cast Olaf Minger, Ballhammer, Alan Danielsson, Alvus Binghauser, Totes Felching.

Norwegian mock-doc about the black metal group Djevlene decamping from the city to record their new album among the trees and mountains of the north. The film opens with a typical Djevlene performance – pounding, down tuned and fronted by agonised screaming – intercut with the quartet being interviewed, pledging their allegiance to Satan and intimating the dark deeds that they’ve done unknown by the media. Cut to their minivan opening in the dark, in the woods, in the snow, to much complaining about the cold and the cramped, dilapidated accommodation they have to stay in. Before you know it they’re fighting over the top bunk and the last sausage and jumping at the wind outside. In the night, following a strange creaking, their drummer Vic finds a hidden door that leads to the basement and in the basement is a grave, its headstone reading: Satan. Then, from under the ground, a blood curdling howling begins. The rare horror comedy that manages both with fine performances from the titular band as played, with admirable good humour, by real life band Snørr.

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Comedy, Imaginary US Cinema

#155 – Movements

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(1982, US, 98 min) Dir Edgar Pooley. Cast Dudley Moore, Daryl Hannah, Martin Short.

Dudley Moore stars as pretentious experimental pianist Radley Moone who has been sequestered in a secluded beach house by his manager (Short – yes, manic) to work on his newest compositions for the New York Festival of Contemporary Music. His star is on the wane, his reputation stalling and this is to be his big comeback. Radley’s gimmick, as a musician, is that each piano piece he composes is directly inspired by the feeling of passing his bowel movements but disaster has struck – he’s constipated! He spends his days munching bran, guzzling prune juice and walking along the beach which is where he meets budding young cellist June (Hannah) and comes to think that maybe there’s more in life to write music about than his bodily motions. It’s an absurd premise played straight and it flopped hard – audiences who flocked to ‘Cuddly Dudley’ in the previous years’ 10 weren’t hot on seeing him obsess about his leavings. The only silver lining are the times when Moore gets to play the piano, in particular an extended seduction scene where he ably mimics the playing style of a dozen or more pianists, much to the obvious and unfaked delight of both Hannah and he.

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Comedy, Imaginary British Cinema

#149 – Pansies Ahoy!

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(1953, GB, 102 min) Dir Aldous Oxbury. Cast David Niven, Dirk Bogarde, Charles Falder.

Florist duo Ted and Gerry decide to do their bit in the war and sign up for duty in Her Majesties navy, both assigned to the same ship, the HMS Pielight under the watchful eye of the notoriously humourless disciplinarian Captain Reginald Oxphroy. Ted and Gerry, being incorrigible cut-ups (as we have seen in training when they snuck a goat into their Sergent’s bedroom), decide to have themselves a little fun decorating the ship with flowers of all sorts and sizes and the more Oxphroy clamps down on them the more they appear. They find themselves eyeing up a court-martial for insubordination when suddenly, on the horizon, a U-boat! A deadly game of cat and mouse ensues and wouldn’t you know it the only thing that keeps the ship’s morale up is those damned pansies! Of course the krauts get a jolly good thrashing and of course Oxphroy comes around to the mischievous florists way of things and before the films out it’s medals all round. Hurrah!

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Comedy, Imaginary US Cinema

#146 – You Have To Start At The Bottom… To Get Your Way To The Top!

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(1958, US, 110 min) Dir George McAnderson. Cast Anthony Perkins, Shirley MacLaine, James Mason.

Bright cartoonish comedy set in the world of big business. Anthony Perkins is Osgood Berenson, a country kid come to the Big Apple with his County College Certificate of General Excellence in his suitcase and the will to achieve in his heart. After a promising interview with Flexible Industrials he turns up on his first day dressed for his very own office only to be met by the mop and a bucket needed for his new position as janitor. By chance he meets the head of Flexible Industrials, the business titan Olivier Welles (Mason), when he’s taking care of the private washrooms up on the 32nd floor and makes an impression with his can-do attitude. “I have to say you seem like a most competent and assured young man,” says Olivier, “Which makes me all the more impressed that you’re willing to work your way up to the boardroom from down in the basement. I’ll see you up here in a year and I’ll make you partner, how does that sound?” That’s when Olivier’s daughter Pat (MacLaine) comes in and the smitten Osgood’s mind is made up, kicking off twelve months of begging, borrowing and stealing his way up the greasy ladder. A fine fun and funny film.

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Comedy, Imaginary British Cinema

#140 – Belfastards

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(2014, GB, 104 min) Dir Jim Laughlin. Cast Phil Laverty, James Gillen, Brendan Forde.

Spin off from the popular BBC NI TV show about a trio of track suit wearing wastrels on the streets of Belfast who have transcended the cultural divides of their city, united in their common interest of being wee turds. Their favoured forms of mischief involve general loutishness on the streets, calling the emergency services out to fake crises and then stoning their vehicles, stealing cars and joyriding them about the town all while getting “lit on Bucky”. Their big screen debut sees Diz, Mickey and Tummers being chased through Belfast city centre after stealing a rack of children’s clothes for Diz’s sisters baby and, once caught, being recruited to stop local drug dealers from the inside. Your ability to tolerate the Belfastards brand of comedy will depend entirely on your ability to spend more than an hour and a half in the company of such appalling scumbags though for some fans the trappings of the shows’ expansion from its half-hour slot to feature-length has diluted the rough-edged charms of the show. For some though the film’s depiction of the central trio’s lifestyle is implicitly condoning them but to those critics the Belfastards themselves would no doubt say “get away up yourself”.

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Comedy, Imaginary French Cinema, Romance, Science Fiction

#139 – Monsieur B dans l’Univers (Mister B In Space)

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(1963, Fr, 98 min) Dir Albert. Cast Albert, Mimi X, Oscar de la Vana.

A grayed up Albert is stuffy aged bachelor Monsieur B, the company man is chosen to travel to the distant planet of French Andromeda where he will act as accountant for the colony there. His  faster than light journey out is a wonderfully sustained piece of physical humour in faux zero gravity – like the Blue Danube sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey remade by Jacques Tati. French Andromeda too is a fantastic visual creation – the best that early Sixties film money could buy, all purple rocky landscapes and blue plants. When he’s out there he makes contact with one of the green-haired alien locals (as played by his real life wife Mimi X) and falls in love. Of course it all goes downhill from there with the colonists set against the natives. Albert found himself in the middle of a political storm at the time with both left and right agreed that his film was an allegory for the colonial enterprises of French Indochina and North Africa but neither side agreed on whether the film was pro or con. Albert, for his part, simply shrugged and claimed no responsibility for their interpretations. thankfully, now that more than fifty years have passed we can appreciate this sweet, sad film for its beautiful colour photography, balletic slapstick and romance.

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Comedy, Imaginary British Cinema

#137 – Helmland Hustle, The

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(2009, GB, 101 min) Dir Michael Winterbottom. Cast Steve Coogan, Jason Issacs, Tom Hardy, Riz Ahmed.

“So, tell me, in your own words,” asks Mike, a Nick Broomfield-alike documentary filmmaker played by Steve Coogan, of young soldier Newell (Hardy), “What do you think that the British army is still doing here, in Afghanistan?” Newell opens his mouth, closes it, and then looks to the left of the screen where Jason Issacs’ Oliver Messing stands. Messing is the Media Relations Officer for this division, sent by the MOD to ‘liase’ between the troops and the filmmakers. He shakes his head and Newell turns back to Mike and the camera. “I’m afraid I can’t be answering that question sir,” he says. Half mock-doc and half feature, The Helmland Hustle slots quite comfortably alongside 24 Hour Party People and A Cock and Bull Story in the Winterbottom/Coogan collaborations though it’s not quite as pointedly self-referential as either. The only issue with the film is that while it lays out it’s satirical stall early on it fails to cash in on this, focussing more on personality clashes than the absurdity of the situation they are all in. Besides that it’s still very funny with a great turn from Issacs, here quite ably keeping pace with improv veteran Coogan, and from Riz Ahmed playing an interpreter who despite blagging the job doesn’t actually speak the local language.

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Action/Adventure, Comedy, Imaginary British Cinema

#136 – Northern Sector

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(1988, GB, 100 min) Dir Pete Foster Cast Neil Morrissey, Peter Capaldi, Denis Lavant.

Scotland, the unspecified future. Chemical Nuclear Industries are the government of Great Britain now and north of Hardian’s Wall the country has been appropriated as their nuclear production zone with hundreds of power plants fuelling the whole of Europe. Into this steps Gary (Morrissey), a lowly maintainance officer fresh out of training, tasked with battling the countryside’s feral occupants to repair a pipeline damaged by the AFEN, the Armée Française d’Énergie Nucléaire (the French Nuclear Energy Army) a gang of foreign interest saboteurs angling through violent action for a contract for their home country’s nationalised industry. Of course things don’t go as smoothly as all that and soon enough Gary’s a hostage of the locals who may be horribly mutated but aren’t all that bad. Cue a showdown with the nefarious AFEN who want Gary for reasons of their own… A cheap but spirited flick that takes enough time out of it’s genre necessities to poke fun at the Thatcherite privatisations of the era. Worth admission alone for the terrible mutant makeup that Peter Capaldi, as High Clan Lord O’Mac, is forced act under.

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Twitter: @MadeUpFilms