Tag: Seinfeld

Unfrosted (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A completely untrue story about the origin of Pop Tarts

The biggest thing Unfrosted (shortened to U, pronounced “chabatwangkluman for linguistic reasons I can’t get into) has going for it is that it is very very silly, and demonstrates how silly it is by playing it completely straight. The fact everybody takes all these things so seriously despite the fact it’s ridiculous just demonstrates how absurd a lot of this is.

But that’s also kind of its biggest weakness. Stoic reactions in a comedic world can work, Airplane is an example of that. But that requires ACTORS, everybody in this is a comedian, and they’re all playing the straight role. This feels like a waste of their talents. Jerry Seinfeld is the most affected by this. He’s known for his wit and comedic timing, so it’s weird he wrote himself a role in which he doesn’t get to display any of that. Especially since his acting skills could be improved. Don’t get me wrong, he is a tremendously talented comedian and writer, but he’s a bad actor, and always has been, even back in the days of Seinfeld.

The trouble with EVERY character buying into the silliness is there’s no real way to ground it, nobody is pointing out how stupid it is. As a result, everything feels disconnected, making it very hard to buy in. Without a reason to buy in, it occasionally comes off as a marathon of references and “Future popular thing? That will never catch on.” The story isn’t that compelling either. You don’t actually care about what happens. As such, there’s no reason to be invested. It doesn’t feel like a feature film, it has the air of an SNL sketch stretched out far far too long to the point where it seems a bit obnoxious and like it only exists so the cast can show off how funny they are, in other words, an SNL sketch.

This review may give the impression that I didn’t care about Unfrosted. Truth is; it’s one of the funniest films I’ve seen this year. The jokes are like a chronic masturbater who has just recovered from surgery which meant he couldn’t use his hand; they come frequently and with great satisfaction. You may not be invested in the story, but you’re never bored. If you don’t understand or like a certain joke, there will be another one in a few seconds that you will like. It’s not going to change the world, make you reassess your feelings about something, or make you forget that Seinfeld is now one of those comedians who complains about how “woke ruins everything”, but it will make you laugh, and sometimes that’s all you need. Plus, in a world where a biopic for a shoe genuinely exists (and is pretty good), is one about pop tarts really so far-fetched?

Saw X (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Bullshit medical charlatans con cancer patients out of their life savings, one of whom is the Jigsaw killer, smart move.

I have a complicated history with the Saw franchise (see my review for Spiral), I have all of them on Blu-ray except for Jigsaw which I have on DVD, I’ve seen 4 of them at the cinema, and I even liveblogged the (at the time) complete franchise a few years ago for Halloween. Yet if you were to ask me what my favourite 50 horror films are, outside of possibly the first one I don’t think any of them would feature. If I was to mention some of my least favourite moments in cinema, and another list of my favourite moments, the Saw franchise would feature a lot more in the first list than the second. It’s a franchise of wasted potential. I’ve insulted them a lot, but if I was asked to write and make a new film in any horror franchise, it would definitely be a Saw one.

Saw X (pronounced how a person from Boston would say “socks”) is probably the best Saw film yet. By which I don’t mean the most enjoyable, or with the best deaths/motives etc. I mean it’s the one that feels the most mature. When it comes to horror movies, people tend to use “mature” as a shortcut for “lots of blood, swearing, and nudity”, but to me, true maturity is in restraint (not restraints, that’s a different kind of mature content). It’s in trusting that the audience is with you, so you don’t need to resort to constant deaths and shock. I know a lot of people watch this specifically for the traps, but for people who are willing to wait and show a little patience, it’s the most rewarding one yet.

Saw X is also helped by how independent it is from the other entries in the franchise. Amanda Young being in it does mean that if you’ve watched the first three then you’d have a better understanding, but I don’t think it’s essential. It provides you with the very basic necessary details so even newcomers won’t be lost. The post-credits scene probably does require some background knowledge, but in a post-credits that’s allowed.

Now onto the bad; the ending is somewhat underwhelming in terms of catharsis. Saw has never decided to not take an opportunity to be cruel to those it feels deserve it (and in the case of Joyce in Saw 3D, those who don’t deserve it), so the fact that we are given one of the most despicable humans in cinema history should mean we are given a hugely satisfying scene, but it never really comes. If anybody deserves to be put through hell it’s some of the characters in this, but we’re denied it for some reason.

It’s also not helped by how utterly pointless it feels. There’s a moment where John Kramers’s life is in danger, yet we’ve seen him die in another film so we know he survives. This entry doesn’t add to the mythos, doesn’t change anything we thought was true etc. It just exists, like it was written without the knowledge of what’s to come. It feels like it’s just plugging in gaps which weren’t there to begin with. It feels more like a cheap comic book that would be released between movies than an actual movie which is a shame. It also has the same problem most of these have had; it feels very insular. You don’t get the feeling that this is a world in the grips of a mysterious serial killer. There are almost no indication that Jigsaw is being hunted by the police, no moments where he has to escape possible prosecution etc.

Really, this whole franchise was f*cked by the decision to kill John Kramer so decisively in the third film, it’s been spinning its wheels since then and it knows it. This brings me to my next point; they don’t really refer to him as Jigsaw that much in this. They do refer to him as Kramer quite a lot, and as someone who has been watching a lot of Seinfeld lately, it’s difficult to get past.

The 5 Best HBO Shows

On By troubledproductionsIn List, Why we loveLeave a comment

The American television industry had shockwaves running through it this week as president Michael Lombardo left after 33 years at the network, 9 of them as network head. Lombardo has spearheaded some of the networks most loved programming, notably he was responsible for guiding Game Of Thrones into development. The future for the network is now somewhat uncertain, not in a “they’re going out of business” way, but in a “wonder what’s happening next” way. Longtime collaborator Terence Winter quit halfway through development of the second series of Vinyl, Westworld had production halted when it was decided it needed retooling, and Game Of Thrones is suffering from rumours that it will end after another two seasons (or in other words; the time it takes George R.R. Martin to decide on a verb). So let’s celebrate the network with this, a look at the best work they’ve produced. This isn’t ranked by order of popularity, or critical success, just personal preference, so statistically nobody will agree with this, if that’s the case, comment and tell us where I went wrong.

5. Sopranos

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One of THE shows of the 2000’s. It was almost like they saw Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and said “Awww, Britain thinks they can make gangster related media, how adorable” and reclaimed America as the centrepiece for gangster films and television shows. I said “almost like”, the pilot was actually ordered in 1997, so it’s just a coincidence. But meh, still an awesome show. The effect it had on television cannot be understated, it could easily be argued that it was this, not Breaking Bad that legitimised television as an artform, not as a stepping stone on the way to film. If it wasn’t for this there wouldn’t be Six Feet Under, there wouldn’t be The Shield. It was this, more than anything, that legitimised HBO as a network that provides high concept dramas, a network that will produce content you wouldn’t get anywhere else. This was a show that could only really be done on this network, it was too brutal, too uncommercial to be made by anyone else.

4. Game Of Thrones

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A show so good it deserves its place here despite me having never seen an episode. A show once described (not by a critic, or anybody important, but by a woman behind me on the bus) as like “Merlin with muff”. Everyone knows roughly when Harry Potter was published, and it’s the same with a lot of book adaptations, but I think a lot of people would be surprised to discover the first book was published in 1996, yet most people weren’t aware of it until the TV series (the series didn’t really pick up until A Feast Of Crows in 2005). Without the show the book series would be highly regarded, but with it? It’s become a cultural phenomenon, and shown that you can do not just high concept, but high budget adaptations too. If the show was made sooner then the chances of Harry Potter being a TV series instead of film would be much higher, and we might have got Rik Mayall as Peeves, AS WE DESERVE!

3. Veep

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A show so good that it’s replaced The Office as evidence that American adaptations of British sitcoms can occasionally work out. Is this better than The Thick Of It? Not quite, but is it worthy enough to be discussed on its own? Definitely. It wasn’t really the easiest show to adapt, ABC attempted it in 2007 with Michael McKean (of Spinal Tap and Better Call Saul fame) and Oliver Platt in the leads. They made the pilot, and by all accounts it was pretty awful, they turned it into a conventionally shot sitcom, removed all improvisation and swearing, and then were surprised when it didn’t work. It would be like if you remade Transformers and took out all references to any robots, removed baking from Great British Bake Off, or added jokes to Joey. So when a second adaptation was announced, people were kind of worried. Then it was announced that Armando Iannucci would be directly involved and people were excited again. Then it was announced that Julia Louis-Dreyfus was the lead and I became very excited as I was a massive Seinfeld fan. I was slightly concerned how an American version of this would be, but it’s just as sweary and brilliant as the original. The original was good, but it didn’t have the line “That’s like trying to use a croissant as a fucking dildo, it doesn’t do the job, and it makes a fucking mess”. It’s probably helped not just by Iannucci as showrunner (at least until the 5th season when David Mandel took over almost seamlessly), there’s other talent behind the camera too. The list of director’s is like a who’s who of British television comedy: Chris Morris, Chris Addison, Tristam Shapeero etc. This show is a mesh of British and American talent, and is all the better for it. Long may it continue (still needs Peter Capaldi though)

2. Curb Your Enthusiasm

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Seinfeld is undoubtedly one of the biggest American sitcoms of all time (sadly, one which has never really got the love it deserves over here) so it was always going to difficult for the creator, Larry David to pull off that greatness again. Yet he managed it, this show not just matches his previous show, at many times it beats it. Seinfeld had a weak period, the last two seasons in particular are nowhere near as good as the earlier seasons, but Curb hasn’t suffered that problem. The first season is a little off as the show is still finding its feet, but the second one is just all kinds of brilliant and details the character attempting to make a show after the success of Seinfeld, so lots of meta-comments and the media, lots of in-jokes, and a season long story arc. Basically, all the pretentious stuff that film students love. Oh yeah, the cameos. Because Larry David plays himself, and he konws famous people, there’s a lot of celebrity cameos; Ricky Gervais, John McEnroe, Mel Brooks all send themselves up beautifully. The Ricky Gervais one is important because he also made a cameo-heavy sitcom: Extras. There’s one major difference between the way the cameos are handled thought: Extras is defined by the cameos, episodes can almost be titled after them. People think “oh, that’s the Samuel L Jackson episode”, or “that’s the Orlando Bloom episode” and that’s how they’re defined, in Curb, the story comes first, and it’s all the better for it. The best one is probably Michael J. Fox, where he uses his Parkinsons as an excuse to be a bit of a dick in one of the best “I shouldn’t be laughing at this” moments, of which the show has plenty (a highlight is the episode where a holocaust survivor has dinner with someone from the TV series Survivor, and they argue over which one is the true survivor).

1. Last Week Tonight

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An odd choice for number one, I know. Not the funniest, not the best made, but definitely the most important. Like a surprisingly high amount of American political comedy, this owes its existence to The Daily Show. When Jon Stewart took a break from the show in 2013 to make Rosewater, he handed the show over to John Oliver, who filled the role admirably. That’s not an easy role to fill, as anybody who has been on the comments section of the facebook page of the show since Trevor Noah took over can attest (for the record, I think he’s doing an excellent job). John Oliver’s stint was so successful HBO offered him a series. Unlike the Daily Show this only has one episode a week, so isn’t really suited for extremely topical stuff. But what this does mean is the areas they do focus on, they REALLY focus on, aiming for them like US Military planes aim for terrorist training camps, only unlike the military, this show usually hits what it’s aiming for. Whether he’s creating Jeff The Diseased Lung in a segment on tobacco companies, or starting Our Lady Of Perpetual Exemption to show how televangelists should by all rights be told to go f*ck themselves with that knife-penis from Seven, this show constantly creates amazing segments which are perfect for sharing on social media. His reaction to the terrorist attacks in Paris last year was particularly fantastic, basically telling ISIS “if you gigantic arseholes are hoping to win a war of culture with France, good fucking luck”. To me, a personal highlight will alway be his war of words with former FIFA vice president Jack Warner, which led to the corrupt former executive to respond, calling him a “comedian fool” in a really badly made video. It’s weird, you’d think a guy who (allegedly) diverted relief funds from a Haiti earthquake appeal, and illegally sold black market tickets (not allegedly, this definitely happened, and he was punished for this million dollar making fraud by being made to pay back $250,000) would have enough money to make sure his videos were of a better production quality.