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Category Archives: Comedy

Night on Earth

R 1991 ‧ Drama/Comedy ‧ 2h 9m
Dir: Jim Jarmusch
Cab drivers, in the US and elsewhere.

Release date: May 2, 1992 (New York)
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Music composed by: Tom Waits
Screenplay: Jim Jarmusch
Cinematography: Frederick Elmes

 

Night Shift

1982
Comedy/Sex comedy ‧ 1h 46m

Chuck (Henry Winkler) has given up life as a stockbroker because it was too stressful. Now, he works an easy gig as a night shift attendant at a New York City morgue. His co-worker, Bill Blazejowski (Michael Keaton), on the other hand, is always looking to make a quick buck. When Bill finds out that Chuck’s prostitute neighbor, Belinda (Shelley Long), needs a place to do her work, he convinces Chuck to turn the morgue into a brothel where they can work as her pimps.

Release date: July 30, 1982 (USA)
Director: Ron Howard
Screenplay: Babaloo Mandel, Lowell Ganz
Music composed by: Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager, David Foster

(NYT) This Ron Howard comedy takes the mantra “Do what you love” to some zany and enterprising places. The high-concept idea is a slam dunk (two guys run a prostitution ring out of a morgue), but its stars, Henry Winkler and Michael Keaton, bring so much charm to their odd-couple roles that they move them beyond cliché. While the movie has plenty of ’80s sex comedy silliness (and songs by Burt Bacharach), its pimps (or “love brokers,” as Keaton’s character calls them) take a respectful career-style approach to sex work, seeing that their employees get health and dental insurance, while also giving them an ownership stake in a fast-food restaurant. A 401(k) may not be far behind. MEKADO MURPHY

 

Idiocracy (2006)

Director: Mike Judge
Writers: Mike Judge (story), Mike Judge (screenplay) | 1 more credit »
Stars: Luke WilsonMaya RudolphDax Shepard

Private Joe Bauers, the definition of “average American”, is selected by the Pentagon to be the guinea pig for a top-secret hibernation program. Forgotten, he awakes five centuries in the future. He discovers a society so incredibly dumbed down that he’s easily the most intelligent person alive.

 

Sorry to Bother You (2018)

R | 1h 51min | Comedy, Fantasy, Sci-Fi | 13 July 2018 (USA)
Director: Boots Riley
Writer: Boots Riley
Stars: Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Jermaine Fowler
website

NYT article here
“Sorry to Bother You” comes out in wide release in July 2018. The film is visually ingenious and funny, yet grounded by pointed arguments about the obstacles to black success in America, the power of strikes and the soul-draining predations of capitalism.

 

Support the Girls (2018)

Director: Andrew Bujalski
Writer: Andrew Bujalski
Stars: Regina Hall, Haley Lu Richardson, Dylan Gelula, Zoe Graham, Ann McCaskey
Rating: R
Running Time: 1h 30m
Genre: Comedy
The general manager at a highway-side ”sports bar with curves” has her incurable optimism and faith, in her girls, her customers, and herself, tested over the course of a long, strange day.

 

YOUNG KARL MARX, THE [LE JEUNE KARL MARX; DER JUNGE KARL MARX]

Following his documentary I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO, Raoul Peck takes on the story of the formative friendship of Karl Marx (August Diehl) and Friedrich Engels (Stefan Konarske). From Germany to France to England, the young thinkers pursue justice for the working class, who toiled under obscenely exploitative conditions to enrich their employers (including Engels’ father, a mill owner) during the peak of the Industrial Revolution. Peck crafts an accessible biopic about these two larger-than-life thinkers, taking them down from their historicized pedestals and allowing viewers to relate to them as young strivers disrupting an inequitable status quo through the power of persuasion and organization. Official selection, 2017 Berlin International Film Festival. DIR/SCR/PROD Raoul Peck; SCR Pascal Bonitzer; PROD Nicolas Blanc, Rémi Grellety, Robert Guédiguian. Germany/France/Belgium, 2017, color, 118 min. In German, English and French with English subtitles. NOT RATED
Run Time: 118 Minutes
Genre: Historical drama

 

WILD MOUSE [WILDE MAUS]

A music critic in midlife crisis seeks revenge on the boss who fired him in this satirical seriocomedy, the directorial debut of actor Josef Hader (THE BONEMAN, STEFAN ZWEIG: FAREWELL TO EUROPE). Unwilling to come clean about his termination, Georg (Hader) pretends to go to work each day, but instead hangs out in Vienna’s Prater amusement park, where he befriends ride operator Erich (Georg Friedrich), previously his childhood tormentor. Georg becomes increasingly attracted to Erich’s Romanian girlfriend Nicoletta (Crina Semciuc), more alienated from his therapist wife, Johanna (Pia Hierzegger) and more aggressive in his stealth harassment of his ex-boss (Jörg Hartmann). Official Selection, 2017 Berlin Film Festival. DIR/SCR Josef Hader; PROD Veit Heiduschka, Michael Katz. Austria/Germany, 2017, color, 103 min. In German and Italian with English subtitles. NOT RATED
Run Time: 103 Minutes
Genre: Dark comedy

 

WHERE TO INVADE NEXT (2015)

Dir. Michael Moore/USA/2015/120 mins

Having spent 25 years making films defending ordinary people, Moore is now one of the 100 most influential people alive according to Time Magazine. Moore now follows up Capitalism: A Love Story with Where to Invade Next, in which the formidable filmmaker tours the world to investigate what the USA could learn from other countries. Discovering that Italian workers get paid holidays and parental leave; Finland’s students have no homework; Slovenians don’t pay for university; and that Tunisian women have access to abortion, he also goes to Iceland, where women hold top governmental positions whilst (mostly male) bankers are prosecuted, in a brilliant film about people before profit.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/1KeAZho8TKo

 

Overtime

Written & Produced by: Emma McKenna & Craig D. Foster
Directed by: Craig D. Foster
Principal Cast: Aaron Glenane, Adam Dunn, Ainslie Clouston, Arka Das
Country: Australia
Time: 9:00
Synopsis: It’s getting late on a Friday night and Ralph is keen to get out of the office, but the boss won’t let him. No big deal, right? It’s just that the full moon is rising and Ralph is a werewolf.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/164392779

http://www.manhattanshort.com/finalists/2016/overtime/overtime.html

 
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Posted by on October 10, 2016 in Comedy, Short

 

Ella Gets a Promotion?

Written by: Mike Pusateri

Directed by: Richard Diaz & Mike Pusateri

Principal Cast: Erin Breen, Jennifer Cudahy

Country: USA

Time: 9:00

Synopsis: Ella, a talented and loyal employee, finally gets the promotion she deserves. Or does she? A humorous look at duplicitous behavior in today’s corporate America.

 
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Posted by on October 10, 2016 in Comedy, Short