Black Comedy

Bad Santa (2003) Movie Review, Cast & Crew, Film Summary

Bad Santa

Bad Santa (2003) Christmas movie

Rating: 7/10

Plot: Billy Bob and his little buddy Marcus love Christmas. It’s all about tradition with those two with Billy Bob dressing as Santa and bringing delight to children at malls while Marcus plays his elf helper. And when the Christmas season is ending, they rob the mall and run off.

With each passing year, Billy Bob’s drinking and sexual exploits get more and more in the way of the duo’s plans. But this season, meeting a chubby kid and a new ho ho ho threaten to change him.

This was the perfect movie to wash Meet Me in St. Louis out of my mouth although I must admit that I’m almost ashamed that I like it. It’s just funny to watch Santa Claus piss himself, curse, drink, and nail Lauren Graham.

It’s almost too easy, and I don’t want to give the writers any credit. It’d be like crediting the writers of America’s Funniest Home Videos for all those shots of people being hit in the groin. Or crediting zookeepers with monkeys being funny. Still, this is a very funny and often unpredictable movie, and Billy Bob’s performance as the titular Santa is award worthy.

I also thought John Ritter was hilarious in every one of his scenes, and I liked the kid, apparently named The Kid, played by Brett Kelly. I’m envisioning a mash-up between this and Meet Me in St. Louis actually where The Kid eats Tootie. No, there’s nothing really sweet about this movie, and I can’t see it putting anybody in the Christmas spirit, but it’s a ton of fun. As I’ve always said, the Christmas season would benefit from more cursing.

The Ref (1994) Movie Review, Cast & Crew, Film Summary

The Ref

The Ref (1994) Christmas comedy

Rating: 7/10

Plot: A jewel thief’s partner leaves him behind during a burglary gone wrong, and he’s forced to abduct a bickering married couple on Christmas Eve. As he plans his escape, things get even more complicated with the arrival of their mischievous son and some other relatives. Can Gus the jewel thief escape before the family drives him completely insane?

I thought this was more irritating than funny. I don’t really like Denis Leary anyway, probably because of the way he spells his first name rather than anything to do with his talents or personality, and it seems that all the other characters were written to be obnoxious. I couldn’t find a single laugh anywhere in this thing, making it just dark instead of a dark comedy.

The premise is clever but predictably written, and majority of the dialogue sounds like it was penned for the purpose of showing audiences how witty the writers are instead of creating realistic, complete characters.

There’s a lot of talent involved, but it’s going to be hard for me to like a movie where I don’t actually like any of the characters. The actors try very very hard (probably too hard), and each gets a chance to deliver these foul-mouthed diatribes that come across as mean-spirited but seldom funny. It’s impossible for even the best funnymen and funny women to be funny without material. Oh well. At least there was a recurring urine joke.

Big Fan (2009) Movie Review, Cast & Crew, Film Summary

Big Fan (2009)

Big Fan (2009) Film Summary

Paul’s sort of a loser. He lives with mom who wishes he could be more like his seemingly better-adjusted brother and sister.

He’s content with a dead-end job at a parking garage. He lives for one thing and one thing only–his New York Giants and their potentially bright future with star quarterback Quantrell Bishop.

With pal Sal, he tailgates every Sunday before watching the game on a television in the parking lot of the stadium. On weeknights, he carefully pens some words for a local sports talk radio show, trading trash talk with an Eagles fan called Philadelphia Phil.

But a violent encounter with the star quarterback threatens to disrupt his routine and ruin the team’s chances of winning the division, and Paul is left to sort it all out.

I certainly wanted to like this movie more than I did. I almost laughed once–at a 50 Cent birthday cake with a “7” candle–but found the majority of what was supposed to be a dark comedy fairly discomforting.

Writer/director Robert Siegel and Patton Oswalt take this character to some dark places, crush his bones, spit on him when he’s down, and expect us to laugh, but there’s not nearly enough of a payoff. Big Fan gets some things right.

You could hear a lot of talk show callers (I’m looking at you, Clones) in Paul’s scripted phone calls, and I thought Oswalt was excellent in portraying this guy. But too much of this was just difficult to watch–the interactions between Paul and his mother, the building tension as Paul sat watching his idol live it up with his entourage at a club, pretty much every conversation Paul had with anybody not named Sal.

Pitiful characters can be funny, I guess, when it feels like they’re somehow in on the joke, but with Big Fan, it just didn’t feel right to laugh at this guy’s pain. Or maybe it just wasn’t funny enough. I would have liked some evolution with the character, something to make me think that it was all going to be all right eventually, some glimmer of light that would make it OK to crack a smile. I didn’t get it.

This movie also loses a point because of Michael Rapaport. I don’t like that guy.

Rating: 6/10

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