Tag Archives: Comedy

Mar 22 2024
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Movies

Classic Movie Review – Some Like It Hot (1959)

Put on your dress and run from the mob, 3.5 readers. BQB here with a review of this classic film.

SPOILER WARNING! SPOILERS ABOUND. If you haven’t seen it yet, and you’ve only had 65 years to do so, I’d suggest seeing it first, then come back here to read and discuss.

I’ve been meaning to watch this flick for awhile now. Why? Because YouTube of all places has been telling me to. I’ve developed an interest in Broadway shows as of late and there’s a new one based on this classic film. Watching showtune clips gave way to clips of this flick that left me in hysterics and finally, I got around to watching the whole shebang on HBO Max. You can too if you have it.

The set-up? In 1929 Prohibition Era Chicago, an illegal speakeasy (i.e. a club where banned alcohol flows freely) is raided thanks to a tip by police informant Toothpick Charlie. Spats Colombo (George Raft) doesn’t take kindly to rats in his outfit, so he and his boys rub TC and his boys out.

Alas, down on their luck jazz musicians Joe and Jerry (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) were in the wrong place in the wrong time and accidentally witnessed the entire tommy gun session. They swear they won’t tell anyone but Spats doesn’t like to leave loose ends and so a hot pursuit begins.

The Jazzsters need to get out of town and fast. The only way out? Donning wigs, makeup and dresses and joining an all-female big band on a train trip to Florida. Hilarity ensues as Joe is very uncomfortable with the get-up, opting to keep it simple and going with “Josephine” so as to not stray too far from his real name, Joe. Meanwhile, Jerry gets comically too comfortable with the situation, lets his imagination run wild and while Joe thought Jerry would call himself Geraldine (thus keeping it simple), Jerry calls himself Daphne and gets way too elaborate.

On the ride, the dudes are on sensory overload. As he ogles all the women in their underwear, Jerry remarks to Joe that he feels like his childhood dream of being a kid locked overnight in a candy store, free to feast on all the sweets without repercussion. Joe, a bit more sensible, reminds Jerry to “go on a diet” lest they get discovered, have to come out of hiding and Spats gives them a bad case of lead poisoning.

The lads meet Sugar Kane (the one and only Marilyn Monroe), a ukulele player and singer in the band. Joe is smitten but Sugar relates that her whole life, she’s has nothing but trouble dating lousy bum saxophone players. Joe as Josephine listens to Sugar’s tale and sympathizes but secretly is miffed that his true self, Joe, doesn’t stand a chance, seeing as how Sugar has sworn off bum musicians and has pledged that once she gets to Florida, she’ll only date well-respected millionaires.

Further hi-jinx ensue in sunny Florida. “Daphne” i.e. Jack Lemmon in drag, is relentlessly pursued by pervy millionaire Osgood Fielding (Joe E. Brown), who won’t take no for answer. At first, no is Daphne’s only answer until Osgood proposes and Daphne/Jerry falls in love, obviously not with Osgood but with Osgood’s money, fantasizing about bilking the old perv for a big settlement and fat alimony checks once Osgood realizes he’s been duped into marrying a dude and demands a divorce. Joe reminds Jerry that, you know, there are laws against that sort of thing. Hey, it’s a movie made in 1959 about 1929 after all.

Double meanwhile, Joe disguises himself as an eccentric billionaire, claiming to be the heir to the Shell Oil company fortune, and only referring to himself as “Shell Oil Jr.” He dons a yachtsman’s outfit complete with the hat and speaks with a phony Cary Grant accent, all to impress Sugar.

The fun climaxes when it turns out the mafia has a yearly Florida retreat under the guise of “Friends of the Italian Opera.” Jerry and Joe spot Spats and manage to hide just in time to avoid being rubbed out. Alas, the big boss of all American organized crime, Little Bonaparte (Nehemiah Persoff doing an impression of Mussolini as a mobster) thinks Spats went too far and draw too much heat on the organization when he rubbed out Toothpick Charlie back in Chicago, so he has his men rub Spats and Spats’ goons out.

And…boy, Joe and Jerry and the mob need to stop meeting like this because they just witnessed another murder! So off on the lam they go again. Jerry as Daphne accepts Osgood’s proposal just to get safe passage aboard his yacht and get the heck out of Florida. He convinces Osgood to bring Joe and Sugar along as bridesmaids.

At some earlier point, Sugar discovered Joe was a fraud but has since forgiven him, realizing that deep down he’s not such a bad guy. You do have to suspend disbelief and you know, forget the part about how he pretended to be a billionaire just to get into her pants. But anyway, the truth is out and they’re in love now and all is forgiven.

Safe on the launch boat and on the way to the yacht, Daphne/Jerry has a heart and realizes he doesn’t really want to defraud Osgood for his cash. He comes up with a series of excuses as to why he and Osgood can’t get married, hoping that Osgood will dump him/her and be the bad guy. I smoke, I’ve been living with a saxophone player, I can never have children, the list of excuses goes on and on while Osgood, each time, says he doesn’t care and will accept Daphne.

Finally, Jerry removes his wig, drops the girl voice and says in his regular voice, “I’m a man” and Osgood ends the film on a humdinger of a line – “Nobody’s perfect.”

It’s funny on so many levels, especially when you consider this movie was released in 1959. It’s funny if you’ve ever been in a situation where you want out of a relationship, but you want to let the other person down easily, so you come up with all these criticisms of yourself, but they won’t take the bait, and Osgood’s that hard up that he won’t let Daphne go even upon realizing that she is a he.

But then when you REALLY think about it, yeah, it becomes obvious that Osgood knew Daphne was a dude all along and was totally into it. The movie ends with a befuddled Jack Lemmon mumbling to himself in confusion, trying to make sense of what is happening, trying to figure out why this dude won’t let him go even after learning that he is a dude and being shocked to realize that, you know, this probably means that Osgood is totally gay.

Big for 1959. I’m surprised they got away with it.

So, there you have it. I gave the whole movie away but in my defense, I did give a spoiler warning.

Tony Curtis is great as the brains of the duo, the guy that keeps reminding his partner to commit to character lest they get shot by pursuing mafiosos. Jack Lemmon, who was nominated for an academy award for this role, is hilarious as he commits way too much, at times forgetting that he’s a dude. The scene where he dances about the hotel room, periodically stopping to shake a pair of maracas (he’d just come in from a long night of salsa dancing) and tells Joe about his plan to marry and divorce Osgood for a pile of money had test audiences laughing so hard that they stuck the maracas in so Lemmon could shake them for a few beats between lines to give everyone a chance to laugh as he moved from line to line (so I read online).

And Marilyn? What can we say about dear, sweet Marilyn. How sad she died so soon. I have to believe she was chosen for this film because there was some underlying message that while some dudes might like to dress up like ladies, nothing beats the real thing. As Jerry fumbles about in a dress and in heels, he constantly complains about the draft on his undercarriage, how he feels like he’s constantly about to fall over – how do women put up with it all? How do they do it? Women move “like jello on springs” i.e. there’s a gracefully sashaying to it all that men can’t replicate. Add to that Jerry/Daphne gets unwanted gropes and advancements and complains about having to fend off Osgood’s undesired perversions and you’d think this movie was made in 2024 with how it puts men in women’s shoes and asks them to sympathize with what the fairer sex has to go through.

Marilyn really was more than a dumb, blonde bimbo. She was the heart of this picture and really brought it home. The underlying theme is Joe and Jerry put on dresses and wigs and sort of got a glimpse about what its like to be a woman, but Sugar has to live with it daily – all the hopes, dreams, disappointments that go along with it. It was woke before anyone knew what woke was.

I have yet to see the Broadway remake so I’ll reserve judgment. I can already tell based on previews that at least one of the dudes comes to embrace drag as in “Oh wow having to put on this dress because the mafia was chasing me helped me to discover I was really a chick in a dude’s body all along.” I guess its 2024 so the showrunners feel they have to do that but I don’t know…there’s a lot of humor in the original with Joe and Jerry not really wanting to dress up like chicks at all. Yes, true, Jerry got a little too comfortable with it but no, he never wanted to bang Osgood. He just wanted his money, but then had a heart and decided not to put the old coot through that.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. This movie has inspired me to start watching other Marilyn Monroe movies, so I’ll let you 3.5 readers know how this goes. And I’m not sure what praise from this blog is worth, but praise to Billy Wilder who made this and several comedies like this in that era.

SIDENOTE: As I watched this, I couldn’t help but see it as an early roadmap to many of the zany comedies we know and love today. Many a comedic film finds the protagonists having to embrace some ridiculous premise. From Weekend at Bernie’s, where the dudes had to pretend like their dead boss was alive, to Me, Myself and Irene where Renee Zellwegger had to go on the run with schizophrenic Jim Carrey – humor is found when characters have to put up with something comically stupid but there’s no way out but through so they just keep putting up with X absurd premise until its conclusion. I don’t know that Some Like It Hot was the first comedic film to do this but it was definitely an early adopter that paved the way and made it popular.

Double sidenote – After watching this movie and googling, I learned Tony Curtis is Jamie Lee Curtis’ father. IDK how I was a movie fan all these years and didn’t know that.

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Feb 25 2024
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Movies

Movie Review – Drive-Away Dolls (2024)

Love may be a sleigh ride to hell, 3.5 readers, but this movie is a one-way ticket to crap town.

BQB here with a review and boy did I ever take a bullet so you don’t have to.

How could one half of the legendary Coen Brothers duo let me down? I was on the fence but when I noticed a Coen was involved (Ethan in the director’s chair here sans bro Joel) I figured, why not but now I’m wondering if Joel hasn’t been the brains of the whole operation the entire time and has been dragging Ethan on his back. OK that was probably too harsh but it’s not like anyone other than 3.5 people read this blog anyway.

The plot? It’s 1999 and lesbian BFFS (they’re friends who are lesbians but not lesbians lezzing out together) Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) embark on a road trip that ends up in a comedy of errors. Jamie is a fast talking, care-free Texan and Qualley’s ability to say funny things with a deep Southern accent may be the film’s only saving grace. Marian is a very straight-laced, uptight office drone who avoids fun but desperately needs some. She decides to visit her aunt for a vacation in Tallahassee and Jamie, fresh off a breakup from her latest lesbian lover (she cheats on her cunnilingus partners often) tags along rather than face the music from her ex, Sukie (Beanie Feldstein).

They snag a drive-away car, which apparently is a thing? I’ve never heard of it before but apparently they arrange to be drivers of a car that needs to be transported to Tallahassee anyway. Alas, there’s a mix-up because the car they pick up contains hot cargo that is wanted by villainous ne’er-do-wells. Don’t ask why gangsters wouldn’t just drive the cargo where it needed to go without involving a drive-away car service to begin with. That one baffled me.

For half the movie, Jamie and Marian tour the countryside, in search of lesbian hijinx, going to make-out parties, looking for meaning in gay bars and smooching other women and what have you. Two inept hit men are hot on their tail but always seem to bungle things up along the way.

To be honest, the whole thing seems like a lot of filler. It struck me as it might have worked as an SNL sketch but somehow they needed to stretch it out to meet a movie length runtime so they added some extra stuff in the middle that goes nowhere. I’ll admit there were a couple of jokes that made me laugh out loud and the last twenty minutes, where the contents of the cargo and the backstory of how it got there is revealed made me chuckle but boy howdy, did they ever make me work for it.

Big criticism 1 – The movie is set in 1999 yet despite occasional 90s references, you’d hardly know it. You’d think since it’s set in the 90s there would be a bangin’ 90s soundtrack but for some odd reason, it utilizes 60s music instead. My first thought was this movie must have been made by young people who don’t know the difference between the 60s and the 90s but it was made by a Coen brother who obviously does. There are some weird psychadelic, groovy type 1960s transition scenes that seem out of place though when you learn about the plot they make a little more sense but even so I just don’t get all the focus on 60s culture in a late 90s movie. Seems like a missed opportunity to capitalize on late 90s nostalgia.

Big criticism 2 – There are flashback scenes where Young Marian, played by a child actor, spies on her nude sunbathing neighbor through a peephole in a fence and I assume the takeaway is this is when Marian first realized she was a lesbian. I know the child actor was probably taped staring through a peephole and never saw a naked woman but I just didn’t like this at all, the idea of a scene where a kid is drooling over a naked adult’s body. Creepy. Weird. Scenes like this just put Hollywood on the path to normalizing pedo behavior if you ask me.

Other than the last 20 minutes, the comedy rests largely on wacky cameos. Dermot Mulroney, Pedro Pascal, Matt Damon, and Miley Cyrus all stop by and the joke seems to be you’ll never believe what this celeb is doing.

STATUS: Not shelf-worthy but I’ll give it credit for serving as a star vehicle for Qualley, the daughter of Andi MacDowell, who will likely go on to do big things in her own right. It’s funny now that I saw her in a leading role in this film, I suddenly recognize her from smaller yet significant roles in films for the past several years.

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Jun 25 2023
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Movies

Movie Review – No Hard Feelings (2023)

Fun! Sun! Naked J-Law!

BQB here with a review of one of the best raunchy comedies I’ve seen in a long time.

If video killed the radio star, then streaming definitely put a bunch of nails in the coffin of the R rated comedy. The last nail hasn’t been hammered yet, and flicks like this one might stave that off for now. At any rate, movie theater released movies tend to be made with young audiences in mind, as the kids tend to go to the movies while adults stay in and stream.

This movie reminded me of the good old naughty comedies of years gone by like The Hangover, American Pie, Something About Mary and so on. Mind you, this movie comes nowhere close to those greats, but its main goal is to produce an honest effort at making you laugh. There are moments that are heartfelt and touching, but there’s definitely no wokeness crammed down your throat or avoidance of problematic subject matter that seems to be the calling card of so many flicks the streaming services try to pass off as comedy these days.

Jennifer Lawrence, one of the funnier leading ladies in recent years, lets her comedy chops shine as Maddie, a bartender from the seaside vacation town of Montauk. About to lose the house her late mother left her due to high property taxes caused by an influx of rich NYC city folk who only spend their summers there, she answers a rather conveniently timed Craigslist ad placed by helicopter parents Laird and Allison, promising to sign over a used Buick to a woman willing to “date” (in quotation marks) their 19 year old son, Percy. Maddie needs the car so she can drive for Uber and pay off her taxes.

Percy, as his parents explain during a job interview of sorts, is brilliant and talented but very awkward and shy, a gifted musician who refuses to perform live due to his social anxiety. Unpopular and depressed, the lad just stays in his room and Mom and Dad fear the kid will just do the same when he gets to college if um, well, you know the rest.

Fearing she’ll let her late mother down if she allows the family homestead to be repossessed, Maddie takes the job, only to find that Percy is so epically clueless when it comes to women that he’s literally unable to be seduced. Hilarious gags ensue where Maddie’s advances are met with fear, shyness, attempts to call 911 and yes, as seen in the trailer, mace.

Indeed, the movie does adopt many tropes from films/sitcoms where one half of a couple is in it for the money while the other half is unaware, and yet, romance blooms along the way and the fear the other will be crushed when they discover the profit motive was once at play.

And truly, the film illustrates a big time double standard when it comes to men and women. Flip the script and have this movie be about an older man trying to seduce a younger woman and it would be downright creepy as hell. Here, 32 year old J-Law is so remarkably well preserved that she looks, at least to my old eyes, as though she could be one of Percy’s classmates, even though there are jokes about the couple’s age difference throughout the movie. At any rate, do I wish my 19 year old self had befriended a 32 year old JLaw type willing to teach me the ins and outs of love before going out into the real world? Yes. Would I call the police if a 32 year old man tried to do the same to one of my 19 year old female relatives? Also yes.

Long story short, blah blah blah, the relationship becomes less about money and more about companionship as the two enjoy spending time together, learning from one another and helping each other follow their dreams and so on.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Come for the laughs. SPOILER ALERT: Stay for the naked J-Law!

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Nov 14 2022
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Movies, Uncategorized

BQB’s Classic Movie Reviews – Airplane! (1980)

Seriously, you can’t be reviewing a movie this old, BQB.

Yes, I am…and don’t call me Shirley.

A review? What is it? It’s a summary and commentary of a feature film, but that’s not important right now.

This is one of those movies that a child of the 1980s knows by heart. Growing up, even well into the 90s and early 2000s, it was on TV all the time. You’d catch bits and pieces of it and have a good laugh. It really is a silly masterpiece, the likes of which had never been seen before, and will undoubtedly ever be seen again. Many have tried, but the team of the Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrahams were a one of a kind trio. They went on to more success with Leslie Nielsen in the Naked Gun series as well as the Top Gun parody Hot Shots. Others would go on to try parody movies that would only fizzle. A number of parody flicks released in the 2000s by lesser talents were so God awful that the parody genre pretty much died out in that decade.

What is a parody? Take an established film and give it a mocking re-write. Throw in as much mocking as you can about other movies and or subjects as you can. The uninitiated may not be aware that Airplane is itself, a parody of the 1957 film Zero Hour! That film’s legit plot was about ex-WWII pilot Ted Stryker, called upon to make a split second decision that got a lot of his fellow pilots killed. Years later, he is torn apart and wracked by guilt, unable to function, often fired from several jobs. His wife, Ellen, an airline stewardess, dumps him with a note, saying she will start a new life in a new city her airline job will deliver her to. Ted buys a ticket and hops aboard, hoping to beg her for one last chance. The crew and pilots get sick from food poisoning. Ted is the only one who has flown and must land the plane. He does so while being talked down by an ex air force colleague who hates his guts over his war mistake. In the end, Ted lands the plane, is redeemed, loved by his wife and can move on to a happier life.

Airplane! is literally that same movie, except with lots of shenanigans and silliness. In fact, I believe the rights to Zero Hour! were bought just so ZAZ could make a silly re-do for Paramount.

Don’t call me Shirley. I take my coffee black like my men. Jim never orders a second cup of coffee at home. Stewardess, I speak jive. The list of hilarious jokes goes on and on. So memorable. So quotable. And yet, sitting down and watching it from beginning to end, I hadn’t done that in a long time. Even the lesser known jokes and bits are pretty hysterical. It is a laugh riot.

And it brought back memories. Sigh. Oh, as a little kid I really loved comedy and hoped maybe I’d be a comedian one day. I worshipped ZAZ, between Airplane and the Naked Gun, to the point where I tracked down a copy of their first foray, the lesser known Kentucky Fried Movie. Not their best, but they were just getting started. Basically just a series of dumb sketches tied together.

Eh, but I grew up. Went the so-called practical route. I say so-called because the practical route was supposed to be easier yet nothing in life is easy so the older I get, the more I wonder if it all just isn’t a crap shoot and if it’s hard to make a living as a ditch digger or an accountant or a bus driver or a teacher or a cop or a pharmacist or a podiatrist or what have you then you might as well do what you love and try to find a job in the silly movie game.

But that ship has long sailed. At least I have my silly blog.

Cue the obligatory, “Oh, this movie would never be made today in these woke times” rant.

Nope, it wouldn’t. First, there are naked gratuitous titties. In one scene where the passengers flip out and run around the plane going nuts, a woman runs by for a close up of her jiggly bosoms. Harvey Weinstein’s evil doings put an end to that. Harvey was a sex fiend for 30 years so now every director in Tinsel Town is afraid to ask an actress to take her top off. You’ll never see a set of nude sweater puppets on film ever again. Thanks Harvey. Jackass.

Second, there’s the funny scene when the woman flips out. Starts shouting, “I gotta get outta here!” One person slaps her. The next shakes her. Suddenly, there’s a long line of people brandishing weapons waiting for their turn to torture her. I never really saw this as a joke about abusing women. ZAZ pokes fun at movie tropes throughout this flick, and here they are mocking the movie trope where someone freaks out, so another person slaps them or shakes them and yells at them to calm down. I mean, seriously, is that really the best move? Someone is cracking under pressure, I don’t think smacking them would really help. It’s like no one who ever wrote a movie thought that if a person is flipping out, maybe you ought to put your arm around them and say, “There, there. It’ll all be OK.” But no. Every character in movie world is somehow trained to see a person suffering a panic attack and sock them in the jaw like they’re a wannabe Sugar Ray Leonard.

There’s the sick little girl who makes funny faces, near death because the stewardess playing a song to cheer her up on the guitar keeps accidentally slapping out her IV whenever she moves the guitar around. That would be seen as ableist hate speech now.

Don’t even get me started on the scene where Ted joins the peace corps, visits a tribe in Africa, hands them a basketball and the tribesmen start dribbling and dunking with the skill of the best NBA players.

Stewardess, do you have any light reading? How about this one page leaflet? Famous Jewish Sports Legends.

The Jive guys speaking Jive like it is a foreign language with subtitles.

Sigh. Jokes that would never make the cut today. I suppose we can debate whether or not that’s a good thing. As I watch the film, I get the sense that here is an airplane full of people of all different races, colors, creeds, religions, backgrounds, ages. They all came together to survive a doomed flight, and the ZAZ team made fun of everyone, not in an attempt to be mean, but maybe just maybe in the sense that if we can learn to laugh with (and not at) each other, then maybe we can learn to get along.

Gotta be honest though. When I was a kid, I just thought the pilot asking the boy if he’d ever seen gladiator movies was just a strange, silly man. Today as an adult I realize, yeah the joke is that the pilot is a sex pervert attempting to “groom” the boy. Sigh. Parents, keep your kids away from adult men who like gladiator movies.

Bonus points that the film took known Hollywood tough guys like Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Leslie Nielsen and Peter Graves and got them to basically do their same tough guy schtick, but while delivering silly lines in their tough guy style. Leslie Nielsen, long a serious actor, would go on to a longer second act as a comic actor due to this film.

Double bonus points for Julie Haggerty. She really is the perfect combination of beautiful and sweet. Maybe it’s just the character she is playing, yet deep down every man wants a wife who is beautiful yet kind. Often times in our society, the beautiful don’t have any reason to be kind. Eh, then again, there are a lot of mean ugly people too.

At any rate, there’s a scene where Ted (Robert Hayes) is in the hospital after the war and he does a spit take. Julie just sort of takes a gallon of spit to her face, shakes her hands and cringes like she expected it (not that she knew the spit was coming as an actress but that her character knew this was what Ted was like so knew the spit was coming) and just goes right on talking. Hard to explain. You just have to watch it.

BTW, I can’t count the number of times when I or another kid I knew growing up would pretend to have hard time drinking a glass of water and be like, “Ha ha! I have a drinking problem!”

STATUS: Worthy of the highest shelf! I can’t go on long enough about how great this film is and how it inspired me as a kid, even inspires me today. We will never see its like again, not just because the ZAZ team thought they could never top it, and not because of how many wannabes tried and failed, but alas, these jokes are out of style.

Surely, we can debate long and hard over whether that’s a good thing…and don’t call me Shirley.

Catch it on HBOMax.

SIDENOTE: Woke problems aside, there’s also the issue of audiences being less willing to suspend disbelief and less appreciative of good humor. So many of the jokes are just word play. The running joke is someone says something, the other says what is it, the first gives a definition but that’s not important now.

Stewardess – there’s a problem in the cockpit.

Ted – The cockpit? What is it?

Stewardess – its the little room at the front of the plane where the pilots sit, but that’s not important now.

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Feb 06 2022
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TV

TV Review – Murderville (2022)

Murderville? Try Stinkville, am I right?

BQB here with a review of Netflix’s new improvised comedy series.

Maybe this one just flew over my head. I’m two episodes in and while it is mildly entertaining, it’s one of those shows I might put on while I’m vacuuming the house, just to occupy my brain so I don’t get bored by the housework but don’t get so intrigued by the show that I put the vac down and start watching. Ultimately, if you want background noise while you suck up dirt, this is the show for you.

Critics love it but maybe I’m just a bumpkin with bad taste.

The premise is that Will Arnett stars as broken down, stereotypical tough guy TV detective Terry Seattle. Every episode, he must solve a murder with the assistance of a celebrity trainee. Thus far, I’ve seen two episodes, the first with trainee/late night TV host Conan O’Brien and the second with football star Marshawn Lynch. Marshawn apparently loves guest starring on sitcoms ever since that episode of Brooklyn 99 where he was a terrible witness because when a prison bus flipped over and exploded behind him, he was too focused on the music in his earbuds and the burrito he was eating to notice or care.

Murderville’s hook is that it is semi-improvised. Will and all other cast members have been given scripts. The celebrity guest trainee goes in cold. They play themselves as a police trainee and must come up with their dialogue on the fly. I assume this means that the cast has to improvise on the spot if the trainee says something that doesn’t jive with the rehearsed lines of the script.

While fun to see the celebs act silly, I feel comedy as a general art form has been dead for many years, everyone so afraid to offend. This show is just one in a long line of wannabe comedies that straddle the lines of humor but never quite get there.

STATUS:Borderline shelfworthy.

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Dec 14 2021
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BQB Watches Seinfeld

BQB Watches Seinfeld – The Betrayal – Season 9 – Episode 8

What’s the deal with episodes you forget? Even when you forget the whole thing, you remember a part or two of it.

BQB here with yet another Seinfeld review.

Quentin Tarantino started off the 1990s by writing all his movies backwards, starting at the ending and leading us to the beginning. Soon enough, every other movie and tv show was doing this, and this episode was Seinfeld’s experiment in starting at the end.

Here, the episode starts in India. The gang has traveled overseas to attend a friend’s wedding and somehow it starts out ruined. We then go backwards, to find out how did it and how and why with a sideplot back in New York where Kramer squares off against his frenemy Franklin Delano Romanowski. FDR(ski) is the only part of this episode I remember.

I’m not sure there’s a lesson here other than the gang acts like their usual d-bag selves, d-bagging on an international level this go around.

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Nov 24 2021
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TV

Larry David’s Younger Women

Pretty good, 3.5 readers. Pre-tay, pre-tay, pre-tay good.

BQB here to talk about Curb Your Enthusiam and specifically, how is Fictional LD able to pull so much fictional trim?

For the uninitiated, Curb Your Enthusiasm is an HBO show starring comedian Larry David, who plays a fictional, semi-autobiographical version of himself as he clowns his way through life. He’s the creator and producer of Seinfeld and Seinfeld fans who watch the show instantly realize this is basically Seinfeld with more swearing and not safe for network TV plots.

I remember even as a kid having a hard time suspending disbelief at Seinfeld. Each week, Jerry and George, both big time schmucks, at least on the show, would date gorgeous, charming, sophisticated women who for whatever reason, adored these dum-dums. Yet, each week, these fools would find some slight, miniscule flaw and the relationship would be over. It just seemed so unlikely to me, that these nudniks would actually give up so many attractive, wonderful women over irrelevant folderol, but thus was the ongoing joke of the show. It was a show about nothing about idiots who got caught up by nothing and like a comedy set in Dante’s Inferno, they were forever doomed to a life of meaningless nothing because they couldn’t get past their own problems long enough to develop something, literally anything.

Larry David basically summed his entire career up in an SNL monologue a few years back. LD said his entire life, he’s basically Quasimodo – unattractive and creature like, he should be happy if any female pays attention. When a friend says, “Hey Quasi, I’ve got the perfect woman for you,” he’ll schlump over and say, “Has she got big juggs?”

And therein lies the raw material that LD has been mining and refining into comedy gold for many decades now. He is inherently flawed in so many ways, physically and mentally and yet, he won’t stand for anything less than perfection in his women. Deep down, he knows this is wrong but he can’t help it and his inability to compromise even a little causes him a lifetime of loneliness, as it did for George and Jerry…sometimes even for Elaine and Kramer.

But the older LD gets, I have to admit, the gag gets less and less believable. Curb has put out 11 seasons over 20 years and even when LD was in his 50s, it was hard for me to believe that younger women were attracted to him.

I guess…on some level it’s somewhat believable. There’s an old saying that men are attracted to beauty and women are attracted to security. That’s why a man will leapfrog over a 50 year old self-made wealthy woman to get the phone number of an attractive 20 something waitress. That’s why an attractive late 20 or early 30 something year old woman might look at the hunky studs in her orbit who just sit around and play video games all day and decide that the silver and/or balding hair of an older man can be overlooked if he has his shit together enough that he can pick up a check and pay a bill once in awhile.

To be fair, the show does nothing but insult Larry to great comedic effect. Without fail, literally everyone LD meets inevitably ends up hating him to the point that they call him an “old bald fuck.” If Larry isn’t called an old bald fuck at least 10 times a season, then the season isn’t over. And it’s sort of implied that if Larry wasn’t a hundred millionaire from his Seinfeld days, no woman would ever give him a second or third look.

So in that respect, I suppose it’s believable that a younger woman might look at Larry, shrug her shoulders and be like, “Meh. OK I have to touch old gross man balls but I get to live in a big house and he’ll buy me whatever I want. Deal.”

Then again, I don’t know. The older Larry gets, the harder it is to suspend disbelief. I thought it was very unlikely when the show had him date Lucy Lawless when he was in his 60s. This season, they had him date Lucy Liu for an episode and I just felt bad for Lucy Liu – how a mere 20 years ago she was kicking ass and taking names as a Charlie’s Angels hottie. She still looks good as ever but she’s 50 now so the best Hollywood will offer her is an old weirdo’s date. Sure, the whole crux of the episode is that Larry accidentally does a feeble thing in front of her and she dumps him, the joke being that one moment of looking in front of a hot woman with options is all it takes for it to be over, but still. It’s Lucy Liu. I know Larry has money but there are other dudes in Hollywood with money…hotter, younger and with hair.

Meanwhile, Larry had a date with Julie Bowen of Modern Family and Happy Gilmore fame last week and I just…I don’t know. It’s just getting harder and harder to believe that Larry could even get one date with such uber babes even with all his dough.

To be fair, the universal running joke of the show is that Larry keeps finding himself in too good to be true situations with these women but he’s such a dope that he inevitably finds a way to screw it up to hilarious results. If he could just tell his stupid, foible finding inner voice to shut up for five minutes, he might be happy for once in his godforsaken life.

What gets even more unlikely is Larry’s BFF/agent on the show, Jeff (Jeff Garland) is a fat, ugly (the running joke last season was that he looks so much like Harvey Weinstein that everywhere he goes, women shout at him, slap him, throw drinks in his face, etc.) yet somehow he’s constantly getting younger women. There was a whole episode about how he constantly gets to bang a hot younger real estate agent, that it’s the “perfect crime” in that he can cheat on his wife under the pretense that he’s with this woman so he can buy his wife a house and then they’re going on a date to a place where they can get it on. This season, Jeff has a fling with a dental hygienist, gets her pregnant, pays for the abortion and other expenses but fears he’s being fleeced, thus sending Larry the spy in to find out if the paramour really needs the money or if she’s taking advantage and I just…I don’t know.

I can sort of suspend disbelief for Larry. This version of Larry is at least trying to find a wife. Sure, he’s old, decrepit, rude and gross but all these women he dates, his end goal is to find someone to have and to hold, love and cherish and protect and make happy, albeit with his limited emotional ability to do so. He inevitably screws it up due to his insecurities but his goal isn’t to use them and loose them. He’s trying to find a wife. And though old and ugly and bald, he’s rich and connected and people in Hollywood know him, so it’s not entirely impossible that a younger woman might be able to get over the old man vibes to have financial security.

Meanwhile, Jeff is married…unhappily. His wife Susie is a comedic genius who mostly serves the need for someone to tell Larry that he’s a stupid old bald fuck at least 5 times a season. She is a caricature of a domineering shrew, so while it is understandable as to why Jeff would want to cheat…I mean he’s rich and powerful, perhaps not as rich and powerful as Larry but he’s still got it going on…but he’s not offering these women anything other than his gross old penis and flabby belly flopping around on top of them. It just seems unlikely that a real estate agent babe or a dental hygienist babe, both hot and half his age, would just want to be with him for the joy of being with him.

I doubt Larry will ever read this fine blog but I wonder if maybe a season where the script is flipped might not be in order. Larry, hire me and I’ll write you a new, fresh season. Picture it. For some crazy reason, Larry loses all of his cash. With it, he loses all his power and fame and glory and he no longer gets invited to hang out with all the cool kids. Instead, he moves to a retirement community and has to live the life most old people his age live – i.e. he has to go to bingo games and watch Matlock and eat dinner at 4 at the early bird special. Even worse, he has to date an age appropriate woman. Larry struggles with the desire for a younger, attractive woman and winces as his 70 something date has to put on a wig and put in her false teeth in the morning. On the other hand, this old broad gets all his jokes and references and likes doing all the old person stuff Larry does so…is this the one? Will he finally act his age and give up the chase for young tail now that he has found someone who finally gets him? No, he’ll screw it up somehow.

Maybe Jeff could lose his money too. Susie kicks him out of the house and he can only find women who have a similar look. Jeff dates a chubby woman and has an internal debate about whether or not he should stick with a woman who understands his struggle and accepts him as is, or if he should try to get all his money back so he can bang hot real estate agents. Still, it’s never explained what the real estate agent is getting out of this. Are women that attracted to money and success that they’ll just bang a dude and ask for nothing in return? It feels like comedy gold isn’t being mined in that one of these babes that Jeff bangs doesn’t come around demanding money lest they tell on him to Susie.

Either way, Leon will still be Larry’s forever house guest. Leon is getting up there in years too now, but somehow, given his style, he’s the only one whose non-stop train of booty is believable.

I’ve noticed that the show doesn’t really try to hide the fact that Larry is old. He’s constantly watching movies that only old people would be into. He does impressions of actors from 50 years ago. Every episode, he’s at the golf course. Even so, he’s always chasing the young babes and I just wonder if one season where Larry wrestles with an attraction to an age appropriate woman wouldn’t be hilarious.

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Sep 29 2021
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TV Reviews

TV Review – Brooklyn 99 (2013-2021)

It came. It went. I’m sad that it’s over but I’m glad that it happened….title of your sex tape.

BQB here with a review of Andy Samberg’s long running police comedy series.

It’s funny, I watched the first season of this show regularly when in the first season. I enjoyed it and a year later, I meant to stream the next season, then the next…and the next. I always considered myself a fan, but whoops, in the literal blink of an eye, 7 years flew by and finding myself devoid of new stuff to watch during this pandemic, I checked into it and discovered I had a lot of catching up to do.

Timely, because half way through my binge (I started this summer and just finished the last episode this week) I realized the show concluded this month. Amazing how time flies.

For those new to it, SNL alum and wacky funnyman Andy Samberg heads up the cast as Jake Peralta, a goofball detective in a Brooklyn police precinct. If you think too hard, its an odd show as in it takes place in a world where funny rarely happens. Jake and his colleagues solve crimes, catch crooks and murderers and yet somehow, wacky hijinx always transpire. In the real world, these types of shenanigans would probably get people killed and cases thrown out of court, but this is the comedy world, so you must suspend disbelief. To the show’s credit, they do manage to walk that fine line of providing goofball slapstick yet the bad guys are still always caught.

The other thing the show does well is character development. It’s a large ensemble cast, yet somehow each character gets their time in the sun. Jake’s crew includes Sgt. Terry Jeffords (uber strong ex-football player Terry Crews who wows us with his strength and pecs), Jake’s partner Charles Boyle (Jake’s partner, a loser who starts the series dating elderly women and living in his ex-wife’s basement, only to slowly but surely dig himself out of that hole over the course of the show), Amy Santiago (Jake’s love interest who worships organization and drools over file folders), Rosa Diaz (a tough, no nonsense detective with a permanent scowl and a deep voice, a far cry from actress Stephanie Beatriz’s real life bubbly, girlish voiced personality), civilian administrator Gina Linetti who ignores her duties to concentrate on social media and trash talking the rest of the gang, and of course, the glue that keeps the precinct together, Captain Raymond Holt (Andre Braugher of Homicide: Life on the Street fame, a tough police captain, the running joke of the show being that Holt is often forced to say absurd, ridiculous things in his deep, authoritative voice. Somehow, IMO, that joke never gets old even after 8 seasons.)

Last, but not least, Scully and Hitchcock. Do you have an old, washed up person in your office? Someone who probably had a real zest for life when they were young but the years crushed their spirit and now they just loaf away at their desks, eating snacks while they count the days till retirement? Dirk Blocker (yes, the son of Dan Blocker aka Hoss Cartwright from Bonanza and Joel McKinnon Miller) plays these sometimes wastes of spaces and occasional fonts of wisdom whenever one of the younger cops dares to wade past their buckets of chicken wings to seek the rare tidbits of wisdom rolling around in their heads. One episode that gives us a flashback to the 1980s when these two were hunky studs, kicking mafia ass and taking names is equal parts funny and sad, a hilarious yet grim reminder that we all must make the best of our youthful primes, because it all goes downhill at a certain age.

Overall, I enjoyed the show very much, though the show got very real in the last season, reflecting a real world and a difficult time period in recent history that has more realness than a zany comedy can handle. Andy Samberg is great at what he does, but IMO, he is, perhaps, one of the last true funnymen, “true” in that his comedy is just that…comedy. If you watch his sketches or listen to his albums, his repertoire consists of silly voices, silly faces, silly premises, silly songs. He was in it for the laughs, never the type of comic who feels the need to impart political or special messages or take a serious turn. Alas, 2020, between the pandemic and the public outcry over police brutality forced the show to tackle serious issues, a challenge the show tried its best to do, and I’m not knocking it but a show such as this isn’t really equipped to do it. Asking Andy to be serious for a moment is like asking Andre Braugher to be serious for a moment. Somehow, when the very serious Braugher says uncharacteristically funny things, it comes off as funny, yet when the consummately goofy Andy says serious things, we just check our watches and wonder how much longer we have to wade through this attempt at drama until he acts silly again.

Unfortunately, in a climate that saw the cancellation of the Cops reality show where cameras follow the police and even the kids’ show Paw Patrol about police officer puppies, the powers that be behind Brooklyn 99 apparently felt a show about silly cops who bungle their way through saving the day wasn’t going to make it in a world that’s doing a lot of introspection about policing. I do think the show was one of the last of its kind, a silly comedy with a primary goal of making the viewer laugh. So many comedies and comedians now feel the need to make us think, give us a message, or to demand that we pick a political side and it’s just…sure, we live in a free country and comedians can do whatever they want but its unfortunate because the best comedians always realized we turned to them for escape and distraction, to get that laughter that makes us feel good…and truly adept comedians might even be able to sneak in a message or two that makes us laugh and think (not the political rallies that the late night talk shows have become.)

One last criticism of the final season, I get they had a tough challenge to be funny while tackling serious but, and spoiler alert…there were one or two moments that left me scratching my head. Turn away if you haven’t seen it, but for example, Jake has a long running friendship/enemyship? with renowned car thief Doug Judy (Craig Robinson) aka The Pontiac Bandit, constantly trying to bring him in yet he either eludes Jake or he and Jake have to team up to catch a bigger fish. In one of the last season episodes, it is implied that Jake helps him escape prison which…I mean I know its a comedy but the implication of a cop helping a crook escape? Holy shit. I always gave the show credit in that it managed to straddle the line between silly comedy and yet reminded us that cops have hard jobs and are expected to make tough calls…so as much as a cop might think a perp got a raw deal (Judy ends up going to jail over a dumb thing he did as a kid years ago), a cop can’t just assist the bad guy in getting away. They dont come right out and say Jake did it, but it is heavily implied.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Great show that unfortunately was a casualty of its time. From here on out, I guess sitcoms will just be a smorgasbord of millennial navel gazing and ennui.

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Apr 12 2021
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Movies

Movie Review – Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)

They’re dirty. They’re rotten. They’re scoundrels.

BQB here with a review. (Yes, it’s on Pluto TV. I’m really getting my money’s worth out of this app, which is zero.)

I remember thinking this movie was funny as a kid but now as a geezer, I think it is more clever. I was able to guess the jokes as they were coming, partly because they are memorable and partly because 2019’s “The Hustle” starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson in a modernized female version with basically the same plot kept the jokes fresh in my head.

Michael Caine, looking rather dapper at roughly 55 here and man what a life you can live if you eat your Wheaties, plays Lawrence Jamieson, a master con artist who lives a lavish lifestyle in a wealthy town in the south of France. He finances his mansion, servants, travel, wardrobe, extravagances, etc. by bilking rich women out of their money, often by telling them he is a prince living in exile, trying to coordinate a rebellion against the communists who have conquered his non-existent nation. The ladies think they are donating to the cause of freedom, while Jamieson simply pockets the dough and gives the women the heave-ho.

Freddy Benson is also a con man, but on a much less impressive scale. He is an American, conning his way through Europe with stories about his sick grandmother and how he can’t afford lunch because he’s saving up for her operation. Freddy bilks rich women out of free lunches and pocket money.

When they meet on a train, Freddy demands that Lawrence take him on as a student, that he become Darth Vader to Jamieson’s Emperor, which is funny because Palpatine himself is in this flick. Ian McDiarmid plays Jamieson’s trusty butler Arthur, who assists in the cons. I know McDiarmid has a long career but personally, I believe this is the first non-Emperor role I’ve seen him in (at least that I can remember.)

Lawrence and Freddy go out on the con together but soon butt heads, finding it difficult to work together as they rarely see eye to eye. They settle their differences with a bet. First one to con super sweet soap company heiress Janet Colgate out of $50,000 gets to stay in town, while the loser must leave.

From there on, it’s a mad cap romp as Lawrence and Freddy constantly one up each other, telling one lie after the next and apparently they have no fear of burning in hell for there’s nothing, literally nothing that they aren’t willing to do to defraud this poor woman.

To the film’s credit, I remember it being a common trope in many films where a character sets out to defraud another character (sometimes it’s a man defrauding a woman or vice versa) and then after they get to know one another, they fall in love. Here, love does bloom amidst this twisted triangle, but (SPOILER ALERT) the duo is not rewarded for their treachery. The ending is rather ingenious and if you’re watching it for the first time, unexpected. I thought it was better than the old “Oh OK I forgive you for being a fraudulent piece of crap and will reward you with my love and trust now” ending that so many other movies go with.

The late, great Glenn Headley plays Janet and this movie reminded me of how sad I was to hear of her passing. She also played Dick Tracy’s Tess Trueheart and I always thought that movie illustrates the dilemma many a man finds himself in. Dick wants Breathless Mahoney (Madonna) because she’s hot, but knows she’s trouble as she can have any dude she wants. Tess, on the other hand, is true blue and will be there for Dick through thick and thin. Ultimately, you bang Breathless and marry Tess…or maybe just skip breathless and marry Tess because Tess will dump you if you knock up Breathless. Whatever. God, my knowledge of film stretches back to some super old movies. No one even gets these references I wager.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. I do remember repeating Steve Martin’s bathroom at the dinner table joke over and over as a kid.

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Mar 13 2021
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Movies

Movie Review – Coming 2 America (2021)

Wasn’t it Thomas Wolfe who said you can’t come home again?

BQB here with a review of the sequel to Eddie Murphy’s classic film.

For the uninitiated, in 1988, Eddie Murphy, the hottest act in 1980s comedy, virtually guaranteed to leave you in stitches such that you’d be grabbing your sides and shouting, “No more, no more! Bah ha ha!” proved what was then thought to be impossible – that raunchy R-rated comedies can have a heart. “Coming to America” was the story of Akeem, the young prince of the fictional African kingdom of Zamunda, whose father, King Jaffe (James Earl Jones) demanded his son take a bride amongst the many dutiful royal babes available.

Alas, Akeem realizes these women are lacking in personality. They just want him for his money and position and are willing to do whatever he says (one of them literally barks like a dog on his command), uninterested in challenging him or being his intellectual equal, he and his trusty man-servant Semi (Arsenio Hall) flee to Queens, New York (where else would you look for a future Queen?) in search of a soul mate.

Disguising themselves as a poor immigrants from Zamunda, Akeem and Semi take jobs at McDowell’s (a ripoff of McDonald’s though owner Cleo swears it isn’t), Akeem falls for the owner’s daughter Lisa, but faces adversity in winning her heart, i.e. his father, like Jaffe, wants his daughter to marry rich (in the form of Soul Glo jerri curl dynasty heir (Eriq LaSalle.)

Ultimately, it’s a coming of age story, similar to the struggle every young person faces. Every young adult wrestles with their dreams vs. harsh realities, the desire to go forth and chase their hopes vs. the pressure to be practical – to do what they actually want to do vs. what their parents and family demand they do. It can be hard for a young person in that they have experienced little of the world, know little of its dangers, and when parents demand they give up X dream, they often do it from a place of good i.e. maybe they tried to do something fabulous when they were young and it backfired and they want their kids to do better, but yet, the parents might know little of what is in the kid’s heart, what the kid is and isn’t capable of, what will and will not make them happy.

I saw this movie as a little kid – in the movie theater. I probably shouldn’t have, what with the jokes about the royal bathers and what have you, but the 1980s were a weird time and parents were like, “Eh. Whatever. It’s just a movie.” Thus was the sentiment that allowed me to see Robocop in the movie theater too and I swear seeing that mutant guy being run over and smashed to bits didn’t warp my young brain at all. Hmm. Maybe I need to tell my shrink about this.

Moving on. Long story short, I’ve been a comedy fan my whole life, from a young age, ever since I figured out it was possible to sneak downstairs while the ‘rents were sleeping to watch Saturday Night Live. At that young age, I knew Eddie had made something special with this movie, something the world hadn’t seen before.

Since then, I became an adult and sold out big time. Yeah, sadly, I caved to what my own personal Jaffes wanted rather than go forth and sew my oats. What can I say? I didn’t have a trusty manservant Semi to back me up I guess. It didn’t work out…or maybe it did. I do have this sweet blog that is only read by 3.5 readers after all, so that’s something.

Alright, enough stalling. Let’s get to the review.

In short, Coming 2 America is a cute stroll down memory lane, but if you were expecting a raunchy festival of frivolity equal to the original, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Watching Eddie in this movie is like watching Da Vinci paint with one arm tied behind his back. It just feels like Amazon clipped his wings and had a whole list of woke hoops that Eddie had to jump through.

Now, mind you, it did dawn on me there might be an alternative argument. At some point, we all get old. We realize we’ve done all we can do in this life and times have changed and we have to move over and let the kids take a turn. Apparently, the kids really like all this highly sanitized, run through ten focus groups to make sure no one’s feelings are hurt drek, so who are we oldsters to deny it to them? Eddie’s older Akeem faces a similar challenge in this film, having to grapple with a desire to please Jaffe’s old adherence to tradition, or to say to hell with it and bring in modern reforms as he assumes the crown.

At times the film feels like Mom and Dad pulled out their old photo albums and gathered the kids around to tell them stories of the past. The kids begrudgingly roll their eyes and sit through it. Mom and Dad have to run the story through their internal brain censors, sharing the good and hiding the bad. Mom and Dad were once naughty kids when they were young, after all, but now as adults, they need the kids to do what they say and not what they, well, once did.

The plot? Remember that girl who barked like a dog in the first film? She and her brother are all grown up now. Wesley Snipes literally steals the show and appears to have had a really fun time playing General Izzi, the brutal dictator of Zamunda’s neighboring country (literally called Nextdoria). When he isn’t busy training his adult soldiers with shake weights or his child soldiers in the finer arts of deploying C4, he is demanding that Akeem join the ruling families of Zamunda and Nextdoria in marriage. Bottomline – Akeem already thumbed his nose at the Izzi family once by turning down Iman (the dog barker) and General Izzi won’t stand for it twice. If Akeem can’t produce a male heir to marry his daughter, the general will declare war, and as Jaffee humorously warns, Akeem is too weak to fend it off. (James Earl Jones rivals Snipes in stealing the show here.)

Ah, as luck would have it, Akeem does have a male heir in the form of Lavelle (Jermaine Fowler) a ticket scalper from Queens trying hard to make an honest living, but kept down by a cold world that won’t give him a break. Apparently, one night, while Akeem and Semi were in America, Akeem was drugged and taken advantage of by Leslie Jones’ Mary, thus explaining where Lavelle came from. (Apparently we still have much woke progress left to make as jokes about men getting raped by women are still considered funny. Literally nothing else is considered funny but Leslie jumping Eddie’s bones while he is an intoxicated state is supposed to be a laugh riot.)

While there is plenty of time for us to get reacquainted with older characters – Akeem, Lisa, Semi and the gang, there are large swathes of the film where it feels like Saved by the Bell: The New Class, the New, New Class, how many new classes are we up to now? There are large parts of the film where the kids take over and work out their differences, i.e. Lavelle got the short end of the stick as he spent his life begging for scraps while he had an uber rich side of the family he never knew about vs. Meeka (Kiki Layne) Akeem’s eldest daughter who trained her entire life to rule as Queen one day, only to be ousted out of nowhere by Lavelle.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. As with all sequels and reboots of old, classic films, I do wonder who is this for? Is it for today’s young adults? I don’t know but I have a hard time thinking they enjoy stuff like this. Kids today probably just smile and nod politely when adults tell them about all their favorite 1980s movies like I smiled and nodded politely when my parents tried to tell me that cowboy movies and Frank Sinatra were the shit. Is it for adults? Maybe. Part of me enjoyed the nostalgia. Part of me felt old as fuck thinking it feels like just yesterday when I was wowed by the original and now so much time has gone by that they’ve already made the highly sanitized remake. Maybe it’s for Eddie, who deserves to cash in in his old age after spending his youth making us smile, but I do feel like Eddie is like this film’s caged lion. If a studio would remove the cage, he still has enough energy left inside to roar, and leave us roaring in hysterics, but alas, studios with cajones have gone the way of the dodo.

But still, it’s cute, and has its funny moments. Hell, Amazon got me to sign up for Prime for a month just to watch it. Oh Jeff Bezos, you devious mastermind, you did it again.

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