Mostly unknown for years and years, Reinhold Schünzel’s musical comedy is a very good musical comedy that would set the template for the LGBTQ iconic movie and musical “Victor/Victoria.” Although known as “Viktor und Viktoria,” director Schünzel creates a funny, adorable, and entertaining musical that mixes cross dressing and heavy queer overtones. It otherwise salvages the pretty clumsy finale that doesn’t resolve much when all is said and done.
Tag Archives: Musical
Return to Return to Nuke ‘Em High AKA Volume 2 (2017): 2 Disc [Blu-ray]
It’s too bad when you go in to a Troma movie and know that this isn’t them at their best. While you can kind of blame it on lack of funding, “Volume 2” of the “Nuke Em High” movie series leaves a lot to be desired and never quite sticks the landing in regards to its slew of sub-plots and sidebars. Director Kaufman spends a lot of the first twenty minutes of the movie catching us up to what went down in volume 1 (with the help of narration by the late Stan Lee) and this gives the movie a chaotic pacing that’s tough to focus on.
Impractical Jokers: The Movie (2020)
The problem with big screen adaptations of big television shows is that the commercials can sometimes save a tanking episode. Commercials can break the monotony and sometimes give the audience a chance to regroup. While “Impractical Jokers: The Movie” can benefit from an ad break or two, struggling to keep the energy well in to the hour mark, it’s a very good extension of the hit TV show.
Even if it’s niche cinematic affair for the fans like me that watch the series religiously.
Celebrating “House Party”: Thirty Years Old, and Still a Bash
For a movie that’s almost as old as I am and features many a flat tops and pastel vests, “House Party” is a movie that’s barely aged. In fact, it’s a movie that so many studios have tried to duplicate but never quite have captured the same magic and enthusiasm. There’s just something about “House Party” that’s kept it a vessel of pop culture, hip hop, and comedy that was shifting from the eighties and in to the nineties. Not even the sequels lived up to what is basically the perfect party movie when all is said and done. The movie advertises itself in the title, but while the movie is centered almost completely on a party, it’s also a pretty excellent coming of age comedy.
The 5 Worst Films of 2019
I spend a lot more of my time looking for movies I want to see these days, so admittedly I was able to dodge a lot of awful films in 2019. With the abundance of avenues to new movies it’s nearly impossible for one person to view it all, so out of the movies I was able to catch in 2019, these are five of the absolute worst that were unleashed on movie goers and movie buffs. Excluded but genuinely considered for the list were The Reliant, Men in Black: International, 47 Meters Down: Uncaged, Netflix’s Rim of the World, The Haunting of Sharon Tate, Long Shot, Kiss Kiss, and Dark Phoenix.
What were some of the worst from 2019 for you?
Yesterday (2019) [Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital]
Director Danny Boyle and writer Richard Curtis have a fascinating premise for “Yesterday,” and when all is said and done, after two hours, they—have a fascinating premise. They don’t actually do much with it, in all honesty. They take what could have been a unique and bizarre tale about an iconic band completely inexplicably being erased from all of culture around the world and turn it in to a conventional tale of rags to riches. I mean the script does nothing with the idea of the Beatles not existing. What would happen to all the singers, performers, bands, and artists they inspired? Would they cease to exist as a whole? “Yesterday” barely scratches the surface at two hours.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001): Criterion Collection [Blu-Ray]
The thing about cinema is that it’s an often very literal art form that takes what is often very metaphorical or performance art about stage productions and has a hard time supplanting it for the audience. For “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” it’s a very good cult rock film that often feels like it has to be seen on stage in order to soak in the true experience. I’m not trying to take away what a cult classic John Cameron Mitchell’s musical drama is, but I couldn’t quite help but feel that “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” could have been much more appreciated as a live show.