Author: David Medsker (Page 25 of 65)

The Foot Fist Way

September 8, 2008 /

The first 30 minutes of “The Foot Fist Way” are as intolerable as anything released in the last ten years. The rest of this mercifully short movie is slightly more tolerable, yet remarkably unfunny for a comedy. Tae Kwan Do instructor Fred Simmons (Danny McBride) is the most socially retarded, immature bag of douche you will ever run across. His miserable whore of a wife (Mary Jane Bostic) eventually becomes fed up with his petty mind games and leaves him, and the only way Fred can set things right with the blow to his ego is to meet up with his hero, Tae Kwan Do master and B-movie action star Chuck “The Truck” Wallace (Ben Best), who turns out to be a drunken, lecherous jackass. The biggest laughs involve a student with anger issues knocking a senior citizen student unconscious, and Fred pounding the eight-year-old son of a man Fred suspects was having an affair with his wife. The movie clearly thinks Fred’s obliviousness to everything around him is funny – take, for example, his belief that he had a fling with a student that never actually happened – but it’s really just sad. It’s one thing to make your lead character an anti-hero, but Fred isn’t an anti-hero; he’s a loser, and there is no bigger waste of time for us than watching a loser act like a loser. That Will Ferrell and Adam McKay thought this movie was funny isn’t just puzzling; it’s disturbing.

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External Movie DVDs, Movie Comedies, Movie DVD Quicktakes, Movie DVDs, Movies

Bill Burr: Why Do I Do This?

August 6, 2008 /

Bill Burr’s brand of humor, for lack of a better word, could be called the inner workings of the mind of the angry white man. He’s not angry, of course, but he hits on topics that could be perceived that way, like when he talks about ‘white people are evil’ movies (inspired by the swimming drama “Pride”), the overexposure of pedophiles on TV, and not being allowed to hit women. One of his best bits involves the hypocrisy of humans controlling the animal population while we procreate without consequence (“Don’t you think, after three loser kids, that you don’t have the DNA to make somebody special?”), and we dare you to not think of Burr the next time your girlfriend wants to buy jewelry at a flea market. He may not have much in the way of crossover appeal, but we doubt that matters much to him, nor should it.

Click to buy “Bill Burr: Why Do I Do This?”

Humor, Reviews, Stand-Up Comics

Starship Troopers 3: Marauder

July 29, 2008 /

Whatever self-awareness the “Starship Troopers” franchise may have had about its neo-fascist nature is long gone in this latest installment, which is a shame because it certainly started off promisingly enough. Casper Van Dien is back as Col. Johnny Rico, who goes from villain to hero in time to save old friend Lola Beck (Jolene Blalock) from attack on a hostile bug planet. The artwork promotes the new weapons the Federation has to play with, but they don’t come into play until the final 15 minutes…and look just like Obadiah Stain’s suit from “Iron Man.” Not only that, the soldiers operating them have to be naked for them to work. Yep, that’s the plot piece they wrote into the story in order to get the girls’ tops off. (Strange, then, that Van Dien later steps out of his Marauder suit fully clothed.) They have some fun with the character of Sky Marshall Anoke – not only is he Sky Marshall, but he’s a million-selling pop star with songs like the recruitment anthem “A Good Day to Die” – and the Federation Updates are always amusing, but it seems completely lost on all concerned that they are asking the viewer to root for a “1984”-style government that sentences protestors to death and views religious faith as an act of rebellion in a godless society. Who funded this, Pat Robertson?

Click to buy “Starship Troopers 3: Marauder”

Action Movies, External Movie DVDs, Movie DVD Quicktakes, Movie DVDs, Movies

Jackass Presents Mat Hoffman’s Tribute to Evel Knievel

May 16, 2008 /

The “Jackass” well, she is a-drying. This hastily assembled tribute to the world’s biggest daredevil – he died in November, this first ran on MTV in late February – contains some impressive stunts, but with Johnny Knoxville serving as the sole “Jackass” regular to appear, the between-stunt banter is pretty flat. Even the stunt involving a guy jumping out of a plane without a parachute was rather dull. BMX champ Mat Hoffman is an amiable enough host, but he sounds like he’s taken a few too many hits to the head. The show picks up a bit towards the end, when a series of bikers attempt all sorts of sure-to-fail stunts (one of which sends Johnny to the hospital), but this rental-only material across the board. If that.

Click to buy “Mat Hoffman’s Tribute to Evel Knievel”

External TV, Reviews, TV DVD Quicktakes

Drew Hastings: Irked and Miffed

May 15, 2008 /

Like a less feminine, metrosexual Charles Nelson Reilly with a shag cut, Drew Hastings is an odd bird, and his concert video, “Irked and Miffed,” is impressive in how it makes his oddness so normal. More of a storyteller than a joke teller, Hastings spins lengthy, humorous yarns about Missouri animal parks, his experiences as a farmer, and his three-day one night stand with a gasper (she was into erotic asphyxiation). The farm bit was the most enlightening, because he masterfully blends his big-city sensibilities (eye masks, silk kimonos) with finite details of life in rural Ohio (camouflage wallets, surly barn cats). Some of the jokes have been done before – Blake Clark told the camouflage wallet joke 20 years ago, and his bit on Viagra has been done by, well, everyone, but mainly Ron White – but Hastings’ delivery is unique and his playful banter with audience members is barbed without being mean-spirited. Most pleasant of all is his tendency to stay away from topical humor. A comedian that doesn’t bash the government; how refreshing.

Click to buy “Drew Hastings: Irked and Miffed”

External Entertainment, External TV, Humor, Reviews, Stand-Up Comics, TV, TV Comedies, TV DVD Quicktakes

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