Daniel Radcliffe...Comic Genius?

So HP6 is out. Yes, indeed. It is no "Prisoner of Azkaban"...but it is enjoyable. Particularly at a free pre-release screening after consuming Zeeks Pizza and surreptitious tiny bottles of wine in the line on the sidewalk.

Where does the comedy lie in this film? Jim Broadbent is a genius as Prof. Slughorn, of course, all high-pitched and frog-eyed--but he plays up the desperate self-involvement and denial that are central to that character, rather than the excessive tweed-pillow-ness of his physique. There aren't nearly enough of the auxiliary characters like Luna Lovegood or Neville Longbottom, who in the book provide a good balance of pathos and comic relief (and acknowledgment that hey, Harry isn't the only one who has lost parents). Rupert Grint as Ron continues to be the slapstickiest of the three kids, despite his recent acquisition of arm muscles. He doesn't get to indulge in googly faces much this time around, because as those of you familiar with the sixth year at Hogwarts know, it is less about giant spiders and more about professoracide.*

However! Comedy occasionally crops up, usually attending some kind of substance abuse:

Hermione + too much butter beer = stumble-y and overly affectionate (funny)

Ron + love potion = stumble-y and moony (funnier)

Harry + Felix Felicis luck potion = the most watchable that Daniel Radcliffe is the whole time (funniest)

The mood doesn't stay high, though--each of these episodes is followed by something terrible and death-y (curse, poison, and funeral, respectively).

Radcliffe and Grint have both admitted that they started taking acting more seriously in the last several HP films. (Not a surprise, considering they are spending their time with Britain's best and brightest of stage and screen.) Emma Watson is planning on attending college once the films are wrapped, but I imagine we will continue to see her in films for a long time (kind of a British Natalie Portman, perhaps?).

In any case, it is nice to see these three actors pushing into both comedic and dramatic acting. Comedy is generally acknowledged to be more difficult than drama--nailing the timing, pushing just far enough, taking only so much focus. Good on you if you can be a naked, horse-blinding stable boy on both sides of the Atlantic...but even better on you if you can nail a punchline, too.

*With the exception of Cormac McLaggen's broom photographed in such a way during Quidditch tryouts as to make us older viewers snicker, that is.

Happy Yom HaAtzma'ut!

Today, May 8, is the anniversary of Israel's independence--Yom HaAtzma'ut. Israel certainly has made a big splash for such a tiny little country, and it's only turning sixty! Unfortunately, lots of those ripples have ended badly for lots of people...but a comedy blog is no place for such talk. Instead, here are some Jewish gifts for all of us to share!

Current cover of HEEB Magazine:

Ever since PCC started displaying HEEB at the check-out line, my crush on Judaism has only gotten stronger. First challah, now this? It's all a Unitarian girl can do to remain objective.

I know what you're thinking. "Rebecca," thinks you, "Everyone's sick of hearing about Jason Segel! Can't we talk about something else for a change?" I suppose, though I respectfully disagree with you. If Brandi had her way, for instance, the world would be like that scene from "Being John Malkovich" where Malkovich goes into his own head...only there'd be Segels everywhere* instead of Malkovichs. Actually, that sounds like a pretty swell time to me, too, but on to other business.

I think it's time to answer that age-old question "what would 'The Emperor's New Groove' be like in Hebrew?"



Happy birthday, Israel! Shalom!

* Flocks of them!**

** Har.

Profile: Kenan Thompson

Those of us that watched Nickelodeon as kids (I was, indeed, Afraid of the Dark) were indelibly influenced. Ladders slamming against windows, the Crag, the Strongest Man in the World, and silvery liquid puddles* all have their place in our hearts. But one of the best was surely "All That"...and one of the best things about "All That" was Kenan Thompson.


Born in 1978, Kenan starred on "All That" from 1994-1999, and he and Kel Mitchell starred in "Kenan and Kel" from 1996-2000. They managed to transition to the big screen with "Good Burger" in 1997, but Kenan was no stranger to movies: by that point, he already had 1995's "Heavyweights" and 1996's "D2: The Mighty Ducks" under his belt (in which he played a scrappy Southern California street hockey player who helped the Ducks beat the evil Icelandic team). Kenan joined "SNL" as a featured player in 2003 and became a cast member in 2005. He still works in film, with movies like "Snakes on a Plane," "Fat Albert," "My Boss's Daughter" and "The Master of Disguise." Take from that list what you will.

Kenan's upcoming films include this summer's animated "Space Chimps" and the movie "Weiners," which IMDB describes as "a road trip comedy about three friends who travel across the country in a Wiener Wagon to beat up a popular daytime talk show therapist." Frankly (get it?!), I like the sound of that.

While we wait for summer movie season to get into full swing, let's enjoy a mini Kenan retrospective. Here's a clip from Amanda Bynes's first episode at "All That" in 1996 (she was ten). The cold open is about her fitting in with the cast, with some good Kenan face time. Keep watching, though (you know you want to hear that TLC song, anyway): the first skit after the credit sequence is a Lil' Kenan gem--Cooking with Randy, the chef who is obsessed with chocolate.



And, twelve years later: Kenan as French Def Comedy Jam stand-up comic Jean K. Jean on Weekend Update.



Of course, it isn't all TV and movies for Kenan. He is a man of varied interests--he wrote the intro to Chicken Soup for the Preteen Soul, and had a piece about getting spanked for lying to his dad in Chicken Soup for the Kid's Soul. And last month when Kenan was pulled over in New Jersey, and the cops discovered weed in the car? Kenan, that smooth operator, only got tagged for driving erratically--his passenger, however was charged with possession. Incroyable!

* "Clarissa Explains It All," "GUTS," "The Adventures of Pete & Pete," "The Secret World of Alex Mack." But of course you knew all that.

New York Times Thing Two: on Screwball Comedies and Shoe Phones

Reading the Times article mentioned in the previous post, I started to feel a little overwhelmed. So many comedies coming out, how would I handle it? For any normal person, it will be a very full summer of new releases. But I, inexplicably, almost never see movies in the theater, so I'll be impressed with myself if I manage to do one a month. It isn't that I dislike seeing movies in the theater, it's just that it rarely occurs to me as a thing to do. And seeing as I've already promised my heart to one movie during the spring-summer season, I really will have to make an effort. But there are several movies that I think will be worth putting on my calendar.

One is the season kickoff movie (pun very much intended) "Leatherheads," directed by your friend and mine George Clooney. It is described in the New York Times article as "a screwball comedy about the early days of professional football." Ah, there's nothing that makes my heart sing like the term "screwball." Except perhaps the term "madcap." Clooney plays Dodge Connolly, a football star (a football player named "Dodge?" this is so promising) whose team loses their sponsor as the league faces collapse. Connolly brings college football star Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski, praise the lord) onto the team, who also happens to be America's Favorite Hero after single-handedly forcing many German soldiers to surrender in WWI. He seems too good to be true, and reporter Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellwegger) starts poking around. In the meantime, she manages to get both Connolly and Rutherford to fall in love with her, and madcap antics ensue, I'm sure. Clooney is always such a joy to watch, I can't imagine "Leatherheads" being any less than clever and entertaining.

The other comedy I'm excited for this summer is "Get Smart." Not just because Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway are awesome, or because the poster is subtly funny (and subtle is not the usual kind of funny you see on posters), but because "Get Smart" is one of the first non-contemporary shows I can remember watching as a kid. Nick at Nite (with FX, back in that summer before 8th grade when all they played were old superhero shows) is largely responsible for my embarrassingly expansive knowledge of sitcoms from the Kennedy to the Carter administrations, and I'm always excited when it becomes obvious that other people in the world love the things I love. Which reminds me...won't one of my friends please start loving the new "Doctor Who" as much as I do?

Anyway, I loved the show "Bewitched," and subsequently did not love the movie "Bewitched." But I am an eternal optimist, and after all, "Get Smart" will lend itself much better to a film format than "Bewitched." TV's "Bewitched" worked in the same way "I Dream of Jeannie" did. The wacky magical blondes would discover or accidentally create a problem, do their best to fix it, inevitably bungle it, and - whew! - somehow put everything back together before Gladys Kravitz or Dr. Bellows could figure out what happened...packaged perfectly in serial format. Of course, "Get Smart" featured Maxwell getting into and out of scrapes in less than 30 minutes, too. But a secret spy agency (CONTROL) versus an ambiguously evil group (KAOS)*, with bumbling agents on each side? That practically begs to be feature-length.**

I should also mention that I'm also looking forward to Tina Fey's "Baby Mama," but because I trust that she and Amy Poehler will make something very funny, not because the previews have bowled me over. I thought "Mean Girls" was great, and those previews weren't great either. So I have a lot of hope. All in all, it's shaping up to be a fun summer.

*Those don't stand for anything, as far as I know. It's just Mel Brooks and his friends being funny.
**To be fair, in 1989 (19 years after the series ended), the creatively titled movie "Get Smart, Again!" came out, with the original stars Don Adams and Barbara Feldon. But I haven't seen it, and probably won't.

New York Times Thing One: on Writers' Strikes, Sequels, and Foreign Shores

Today's New York Times has a story about the slate of movies up for release between April and early July: evidently, about half the major releases will be comedy films. How come? NY Times:

The comic alignment probably owes more to the film industry’s internal dynamics as pictures in the same genre just happened to fall into place — and as executives, noting the success of “Wild Hogs” last March and “Superbad” last August, edged more comedies into the big-money months — than to any pulse moving through the nation at large. Whatever the source, it will test the audience appetite for a whole lot of what is usually a good thing.

Apparently the Times doesn't want us to read into this, or to start seeing patterns where there is only chaos. But that's no fun. Commencing with speculation! And hey, here's a good place to start: thanks to the writers' strikes in both years, comparisons between 1988 and 2008 are inevitable. And even though most of this summer's films were already steaming along by November of last year, let's jump wholeheartedly on that bandwagon.

The summer after the 1988 writers' strike gave us only four comedies that topped $100 million: "Coming to America," "Big," "Crocodile Dundee II" and the unparalleled "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" That summer also saw two R-rated comedies--"A Fish Called Wanda" and "Bull Durham"--that gave parents something to look forward to after, say, three trips with the kids to "Short Circuit 2" (at five years old, I was too young to care about seeing movies in the theater...you're welcome, Mom and Dad). And, despite dismal box office failures, let's not leave out: "Big-Top Pee-wee," "Caddyshack II," and "Arthur 2 On the Rocks," which, by the way, wins for best title for a sequel ever. And while they weren't comedies, it's worth noting "Poltergeist III," "Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master", "Rambo III," also came out, inspiring the 1988 New York Times (bless their online archive) to opine that "[t]he fate of most of the summer's sequels implies that sequels may no longer be an automatic way for movie studios to earn money." Har! Last year, the third "Pirates" installment made more than $300 million, which I believe was considered in the industry to be a slight let-down compared to take from the summer 2006 "Pirates," which brought in $135 million in its first three days. Just because a film flops at the box office it doesn't mean it wasn't good for the production companies. As long as they make a comfortable net profit, they're satisfied. That's why the sequel, no matter how inferior an exercise it is in filmmaking, isn't going anywhere any time soon - they are generally guaranteed to make money, just not as much as the original. It's original movies that are financially riskier. The NY Times makes this point:

The poor results [of "Walk Hard" and the opening of "Semi-Pro"] sent a shiver through an industry that likes comedies because they are generally less expensive than animated films like “Ratatouille” or effects-driven spectacles like “Transformers.” But though more cost-effective, comedies still need a healthy turnout by American moviegoers because most do not play well abroad.

Much of the world doesn't think we're funny. Or, maybe they don't care even if we are. Like Mark Twain pointed out, different cultures have different ideas of what constitutes comedy. "Ratatouille" broke all box office records in France for an animated film ($16 million in American dollars in the first week), and Le Monde declared it "one of the greatest gastronomic films in the history of cinema." It wasn't because Patton Oswalt has replaced Jerry Lewis in the hearts of the French - it was because "Ratatouille" was so painstaking in its ex-patriotism and delivery that both American and French sensibilities could be satisfied. I doubt the same could be said for the upcoming John C. Reilly/Will Ferrell vehicle "Step Brothers." Which isn't to say it won't be hilarious, of course. Here's hoping that the denizens of the American university Greek systems have steady jobs this summer--Hollywood is depending on them.