Office Space (1999)

Director: Mike Judge

Brilliant satirical comedy of modern cubicle culture, and one that really hasn't aged much at all despite being over two decades old now.

For those who somehow haven't seen it, here's the brief summary: computer programmer Peter (Ron Livingston) is burned out with his cubicle job. After he has a mental snap brought on by a hypnosis session gone awry, he becomes magically apathetic towards the job, ignoring bosses and blissfully drifting through his day doing whatever he wants. He soon hatches a scheme with two friends and highly disgruntled co-workers to rob the company with a computer program of their own design. Things do not go as planned, sending the trio scrambling to solve the far greater problem which they've created for themselves.

That summary does zero justice to just how hilarious and witty this movie is. Written and directed by Mike Judge (Beavis and Butthead, Idiocracy, Silicon Valley, Tales from the Tour Bus, and others), this was one of the all-time great comic indictments of cubicle and corporate culture that really crystalized in the 1990s and ran right up through the following decades. To this day, over 20 years later, there are dozens of characters, lines, and situations that people know as well as any comedy or classic drama in film history. Whether it's the boss Bill Lumberg's detached, "yeah..." or a reference to "flare" or the gangster-style beatdown of a copy machine, this movie had so many great, brilliantly-executed comic ideas that they were bound to live on for many, many years. This, despite the fact that it was a box office flop.

Many of the quietly miserable sad sacks that work at Initech -
a bland, soul-sucking company that drives several of its
employees to go off the rails in myriad ways.

And like Mike Judge's other works, especially Idiocracy, Office Space has some very smart commentary about work, detachment, and the dynamic between employers and employees - a dynamic that has weirdly morphed into something more like what was present during the 1930s and '40s than what began happening in the '60s and '70s. By the late 1990s, large companies had begun growing far larger, only exacerbating the distance between managers and the front-line employees. This is very much where so many of the gags in Office Space are born, which is why the movie holds up so well. While certain elements have changed in terms of how big businesses operate, there still exists in many of them infinite layers of middle-management and socioeconomic disparity that anger and resentment from lower-level employees has only intensified. Peter, as goofy and ill-advised as his decisions can be, embodies a lot of that frustration here, and he cracks us up while doing it.

I don't know that this movie will ever really get old. I go back to it every few years, and while it will never be quite as fresh or funny as it was the first time I watched it two decades ago, it's still among the all-time greats. 

Idiot Boxing, FX Edition: Legion, season 3 (2019); Archer, season 10 (2019)

No Spoilers for either show. Read away!!

Two great shows, one which seems to be nearing its long run, and the other coming to the pre-determined end of its short but amazing run.

The season poster gives you some idea of just how trippy this
show, and particularly this season, can be. 

Legion, season 3 (2019)

One of the most amazing TV shows I've seen in years, and easily the very best show or movie inspired by comic book "superhero" characters.

At this point, virtually every human on earth is aware of Marvel Studio's total domination of the box office, via the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and, until recently, the X-Men series. Even smaller properties like Deadpool have raked in cash. When it's come to their TV shows, however, there hasn't been nearly as much success. The handful of shows on Netflix, such as Daredevil and Jessica Jones, have been mixed bags. They've also focused a few shows on even lesser-known characters, such as Cloak and Dagger and Runaways. But no greater leap was taken than when they greenlit a show about a somewhat obscure character from the X-Men comic books of the 1980s and '90s: David Haller. David, also known as "Legion," was the son of immensely powerful telepath Charles "Professor X" Xavier. David was also an incredibly powerful telepath, as well as being a telekinetic of such strength that he could essentially alter nearly all of reality. The terrifying part of all of this is that, in addition to his awesome powers, David was also wildly schizophrenic.

David Haller is hardly the type of character around whom Marvel Studios had built commercial success, so it seemed like an odd longshot to be any sort of winning show. But when the show was given to Noah Hawley and the FX network, magic happened. Hawley, who had won over my massive skepticism with the dazzling work on the TV show Fargo, has done something with Legion that will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for other "comic book" shows to equal or top. He has utilized so many aspects of the audio-visual medium of television and crafted a dazzling, poetic, and often beautifully artistic story that is as touching as it is fantastic.

Amahl "The Shadow King" Farouk returns, though whether
he is an ally or arch-enemy to humanity remains unclear
right up until the final moments of the entire series.

With this third and final season of Legion, we get the completion of the bold and emotionally powerful tale of David, as imagined by Hawley. Through the first two seasons, we see David learn of his immense powers, as well as the fact that he has been harboring the psychic manifestation of Amal Farhouk, an entity known as "The Shadow King" - another mutant with abilities on par with David's. We have also seen Farhouk's "exorcism" from David, and their race for Farhouk's long-buried body. This final season follows David's erratic and reality-bending attempts to undo the damage which he and Farhouk's battles have caused, all while Farhouk constantly turns the tables and plays multiple sides against each other to aims uncertain to everyone, including us viewers. The primary addition to this season was that of the character Switch - a time traveler whom David recruits to help him in his quest to right past wrongs. As you can imagine, this begins to further complicate matters, and it all comes to a complex resolution.

This being a spoiler-free review, I will not get into any details. It would be a great disservice to this show to give anything away, as I felt that one of the great joys of it was waiting to see how its many enigmas and knots revealed and untangled themselves. And make no mistake - this show demands patience and close attention; probably more than nearly any prime-time show out there, and definitely far more than any comic book show has every dared. Certain images appear and actions take place which will leave one baffled; that is, until one, two, or several episodes later when the connections are made clear. And there are more than a few visual and cinematic flights of fancy that are part of the proceedings. These include vibrant, psychedelic dream sequences and even a couple of song-and-dance numbers. I'm normally not one for the latter, but my musical sensibilities seem to align with Noah Hawley well enough, so I was happy to drink in these sequences.

Like previous seasons, this one shows dazzling creativity in terms of narrative structure and horror concepts. Without giving anything away, I can simply say that the Time Eaters are some of the most visually creative, terrifying things I've seen on a TV show in ages. And while using time travel is a tired sci-fi plot device in nearly every case at this point, Legion actually does more than a few wonderfully novel things with it. Things that actually make artistic use of the audio-visual medium of television in ways that I've never seen before.

But the thing that put the show completely over the top for me - the thing that had me getting choked up multiple times during the final episode - is the resolution and how daring it was. Again, no spoilers here, but I cannot think of any comic book-inspired film or TV show, or many TV dramas for that matter, which have shown the guts and heart that Legion did in its finale. Far too many shows take the easy route of offering resolutions that don't challenge us viewers with something different and thought-provoking. Legion does just that, and it is an infinitely greater show for it.

And so ends what may go down as the very best comic book show in history. If any show or movie manages to top it, I only hope that I'm around to see it.

Archer, season 10 (2019)

Another amusing "fantasy" season of Archer, though one that I'm happy to say seems to be the last in the "Archer Coma Dream" arc of seasons.

At the end of season 7, Archer was sent into a coma, thus kicking off a series of seasons which take place completely inside Sterling Archer's coma-imprisoned brain. Season 8 saw all of the characters placed in a world of film and literature noir of the 1940s and '50s, and season 9 took its setting and plot elements from the exotic action/adventure tales popular in the 1920s and '30s. In this season, the gang is sent into a completely different genre - that of science-fiction. Dubbed "Archer 1999," it uses many of the elements seen in popular sci-fi action movies, most obviously Alien, but also including tons from other well-known and lesser-well-known sci-fi TV shows and films such as Battlestar Galactica, The Herculoids, Forbidden Planet, and tons of others. A bit more in keeping with the earlier, "real" seasons, this season doesn't have a single plot thread that runs through all episodes, being rather a collection of self-contained episodes.

This season was pretty fun. Moreso, I found, than the previous "Danger Island" or "Dreamland" seasons. Those was were amusing, to be sure, but I found 1999 to be a bit more consistently funny and even more creative from episode to episode. These "coma" seasons have always had fun in taking regular cast members and thrusting them into new roles of varying zaniness, but 1999 probably had the most entertaining and spot-on re-imaginings of everyone, whether it was Ray Gillette taking on the "courtesan" role as inspired by Firefly or the mad scientist Krieger as an android obviously inspired by Ian Holmes's deranged synthetic in Alien, the writers set themselves up to have a blast.

Mr. Deadly - the title character from my favorite episode. With
a combination of great comedy writing and hilarious voice
acting by Matt Berry, this was one of the best Archer episodes
I had seen in several seasons.

The individual stories, while rarely living up to the best episodes of the first several seasons of the show, are solid. My particular favorite was episode 5, "Mr. Deadly Goes to Town," in which the crew discover a robot which is actually a walking, talking doomsday device voiced brilliantly by Matt Berry, whom I know and love from the What We Do in the Shadows TV series. This was the standout episode for me, but nearly all of the others gave me some good laughs, even if some of the standard gags in the Archer series have long since been a tad played out.

The show has been renewed for an 11th season, beginning this September, which I'm glad to see. But not as glad as knowing that it is finally, after over three years, returning to the "reality" of having Sterling and his cohorts back in the real world, being humans and presumably getting back to their cartoonish approach to being some sort of spy organization. 

New Release! Deadpool

Silly? Sophomoric? Sure, at times. But
there is also plenty of adult insanity in
this irreverent little treat.

Director: Tim Miller

A fun, irreverent ride through well-worn landscapes, if not exactly as great as you might be led to believe.

It's hard to dislike the general spirit of Deadpool, which is very much about sticking its tongue out and thrusting its middle finger up at the genre of superhero flicks.

Based on the character and comic of the same name, the movie traces the origin of "Deadpool", the moniker chosen by lethal mercenary Wade Wilson. Wilson is a motor-mouthed, top-notch fighter who occasionally exhibit the slightest touches of humanity, though he keeps them buried deep beneath an endless supply of filthy one-liners and string of hedonistic indulgences. Wilson eventually finds the woman of his dreams, Vanessa, a prostitute with the attitude wild enough to become Wade's soul mate. When Wilson contracts terminal cancer, he volunteers for experimental treatments which trigger his latent mutant abilities to regenerate at hyper-rapid speeds. This does allow him to easily beat the cancer; unfortunately, the process also hideously scars his entire body. Wilson also learns that he is meant to be a slave soldier sold off to the highest bidder. After escaping, Wilson adopts the name Deadpool and goes on a mission to find the twisted scientist who double-crossed him, thinking that he might be able to fix his dreadful appearance.

With an endless supply of jokes and a "f*** superheroes" philosophy, Deadpool throws everything that it has at you, from the opening scenes to the closing credits. True to the comic books, Deadpool breaks the fourth wall and frequently addresses us viewers. This might seem cheap, but it works fine if you just chalk it up to the very real possibility that Wilson has been driven insane. It's also pretty hilarious, much of the time. One of the character's other trademarks, his nonstop jokes, is on full display. Not every gag hits, to be sure, but there are so many that even when only one out of three are good, it still adds up to plenty of laughs. There is no better time like the present to make fun of superhero movies, given how ubiquitous and lucrative the genre has become in the last ten years, and Deadpool is one of the few, and certainly the gutsiest, to take the air out of the balloon.

How many superheroes would chill in a hovel with their
blind, randy roommate? I now know of one.

The other primary asset of the movie is the way it fully embraced a "hard R" rating. This movie is in no way meant for children, with language blue enough for an inmate in Ryker's solitary and violence to make Kill Bill's Bride a bit queasy. True, the violence is silly and cartoonish enough that it can hardly be taken seriously. Still, a parent would still have a lot of explaining to do if they let any kid under the age of 14 or 15 watch the gleeful brutality in Deadpool. This adult orientation is refreshing, as it allows the movie to put such ultra-violence in its proper place. That is, the world of fantasy. Even people with little stomach for violence in movies is likely to be unfazed by the utterly ridiculous carnage in Deadpool, so nonsensical is it.

I do feel that the writing could have been sharper and more clever. Still, the movie makes up for much of its lack of creativity with its strong sense of itself and ample humor. I'll definitely be returning to this one, most likely after my next binge through the Marvel Cinematic Universe or after I force myself to go hate-watch Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice next week. It'll make for a nice aperitif. Or at least a quirky, refreshing microbrew to wash out the taste of Ben Affleck's Batman.

Retro Trio: A Fish Called Wanda (1988); The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997); Killing Them Softly (2012)

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

Director: Charles Chrichton & John Cleese

A 1980s classic comedy that still has it.

I watched this movie plenty of times as a kid, but it had been at least 10 years since I last saw it. Though there are a few dated elements, in terms of the visuals, the dash of sappiness, and even a bit of the acting, A Fish Called Wanda is still a brilliant blend of British and U.S. humor.

For those who may not have seen it, the story mostly follows Wanda Gershwitz (Jamie Lee Curtis), a con woman who uses her beauty and wiles to horn in on a bank heist, with the intention of stealing the prized diamonds from the primary thieves. Using sex and emotional manipulation, she coldly plays every man involved - the mastermind George, the weapons man Otto (Kevin Kline), the stuttering henchman Ken (Michael Palin), and the repressed and unwitting lawyer Archie (John Cleese).

What allows the movie to stand the test of time rests on the script and the performances. The interactions between the more liberal and maverick Americans - Wanda and Otto - and their British cohorts are hilarious and eminently quotable. The standout scenes are typically between Otto and any of the English characters, whom he despises out of his own small-minded xenophobia and latent inferiority complex. Otto's supremely "ugly American" personifies every laughably obnoxious trait of U.S. travellers that has been the butt of jokes for decades, right up to the present.

Otto may not have been as memorable had it not been for an Academy Award-winning performance by Kevin Kline, which is a rare feat for a comedy film, but completely worthy. He often makes the movie, and his stand-offs with John Cleese's barrister Archie Leach and Michael Palin's Ken are perfection.

Great movie that is still great 25 years later, and will likely be great for decades to come.

The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997)

Director: Jon Amiel

A pretty fun, if not outstanding, little comedy.

I had never seen this one before, and I must admit that I could see why it was never hailed as a "great" comedy, despite having a great cast. The movie is a spoof on the spy thriller genre, following goofy American tourist Wallace Ritchie (Bill Murray) who goes to London and is unwittingly pulled into a plot between English and Russian forces to resurrect the Cold War status quo. Ritchie, however, is sucked into the entire affair, believing that he is the center of a popular television show on which the central "actor" is an average person who must play along with the professional actors around him, ad libbing along the way.

This premise isn't a bad one, as far as spoofs go, though the political elements do seem a few years too late for a film made in 1997. Even still, there was plenty of fodder for better political satire which went unused. That aside, there are plenty of solid setups for the comedic misunderstandings that drive the movie.

Instead of focusing more on the political humor, the film focused almost solely on its star, and one could do far worse than Bill Murray. Even when the dialogue or set-ups fall flat, Murray can carry a scene or an exchange with his hilarious deliveries, reactions, and physical comedy. It's easy to forget, given Murray's strengths with extremely dry and deadpan humor, that he can act the oblivious fool extremely well.

As a whole, though, the humor and goofiness wore thin by the third act. Despite being an obvious parody, the silliness level ramped up a little too high to remain effective. The grand finale scene consists of an overly long dance routine that borders on feeling interminable. And instead of leaving well enough alone and having Wally go on his merry way, we're left with him being recruited by the C.I.A. It was a bit too juvenile for my liking.

Had the script been a bit more clever and abandoned the more slapstick elements, this movie could very well have been a classic. As it is, it offers a few laughs, but doesn't warrant multiple viewings for me.

The social commentary is clumsy, but it
is curious enough to provoke thought.

Killing Them Softly (2012)

Director: Andrew Dominik

I was disappointed, but not necessarily because the movie is bad.

Killing Them Softly was released in 2012 and had a short and quiet run in theaters, despite solid critical acclaim. By the time of its video release, it had attained status as an "underrated film" and "sleeper pick" by critics in many quarters. With all of this "in the know" hype, I had very high hopes. The movie is quite good, but not without its flaws.

I will admit that the movie is fairly original, in terms of its grittiness and willingness to look at the more unglamorous aspects of criminality. The story takes place in a horribly bleak part of Boston, where a couple of dim, low rent street guys rob a high stakes poker game which includes members of the local mob. This sets off a chaotic attempt to assess blame and levy punishment, with noted hitman Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) brought in to sort the entire mess out.

The novelty of the story is that it does look at the disorganization and brutality of "organized" crime. The characters come off as extremely authentic, with all of their weaknesses on full display. Whether it's simple base greed, lust, or substance addiction, a viewer gets the sense that the grim and nasty picture painted for us is far closer to the reality than the more palatable portraits given us by more mainstream gangster movies. Instead of the ultra-slick, hyper-intelligent criminals, we see the sad, flawed, and ultimately doomed thugs and lowlifes who stand no real chance at getting what they want. Easily the most poised character is Jackie, who spends far more energy battling his disgust for the stupidity and indecision around him than on actually cleaning up the various messes created by foolish thugs and Jackie's waffling employers.

Jackie spends an awful lot of time in this kind of situation -
explaining a lot of harsh realities to dim or weak wanna-be
criminals. They provide much of the movie's power.

As far as the cleaning up of those messes, they do provide some excellent on-screen suspense and power. There are more than a few scenes that can effectively stun you with their impact. Unfortunately, there are also a few plot lines and scenes that seem to drag endlessly. The main one is the entire character Mickey, played by James Gandolfini in one of his final roles before his death. Mickey is an aging hitman who Jackie brings in to help him, but it soon becomes apparent that Mickey is a broken shell of what he once was. The point of Mickey's descent, though, is belabored so much that it is taxing to watch, and it almost resulted in my completely checking out of the film. Blessedly, it does end, and the main story picks back up in the movie's final 20 minutes.

A greater enigma hanging over the entire movie is the completely unsubtle social commentary. Right from the jump, we see dashes of political posters with Obama and Romney on them, in the throes of the 2008 presidential race. The blatantly obvious message is that the United States is in a state of free-for-all chaos, with our little crime story meant as a microcosm of the entire quagmire. It's not a terrible suggestion, but it could have been handled with far more deftness. It does, however, set up an absolutely classic final line to the movie, which may be one of the most memorable in all of crime cinema.

Killing Them Softly is, despite its weaknesses, a nice addition to the genre of crime films. It does stand apart from most of its ilk, and the performances are more than strong enough to carry a viewer through it. Definitely recommended to any fan of gangster movies. 

Last Action Hero (1993)

Director: John McTiernan

Last Action Hero was a good idea that couldn't quite pull off the execution (cue the Jack Slater bad pun here).

The movie tells the story of Danny Madigan, a 12-year-old who's obsessed with movies, especially action flicks featuring his hero, Jack Slater. Slater is a virtual parody of the already-over-the-top action hero that dominated the box offices through the '80s and early '90s, and the character is played by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger himself. On one particularly tough evening, Danny is given a magical ticket that transports him into the latest Jack Slater sequel, where he quite literally becomes a part of the world of the big-budget action film as Jack Slater's sidekick.

The real trouble begins when one of the arch villains in the picture - an icy-cold assassin named Benedict (played brilliantly by Charles Dance, whom you may know as Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones) - finds Danny's magical ticket and transports himself into "our" world, the realistically dour and dingy New York City. Benedict's master plan involved using the ticket to go into various films and bring other villains into this world where, as he puts it, "The bad guys can win." Danny brings the fictional Jack Slater into the real world to try and stop Benedict. The problem is that Slater, no longer in his world, is now vulnerable in ways that he has never been in his own movies.

The icy-cold and wonderfully sarcastic Benedict - probably
the most consistently excellent thing about this movie.

Last Action Hero does have its moments. It was certainly a parody that was due back in 1993, as that particular style of action movie had reached untold heights of commercial success and featured no end of formulaic and often downright silly elements. These elements are spoofed in both obvious and subtle ways, in turn. A prime example is when Danny is first transported into the latest Jack Slater movie, right into the back seat of Slater's speeding muscle car. As he looks around at the ridiculous and cacophonous action unfolding around him, he takes note: "Wait a minute. The bad puns...the explosions...the hard rock soundtrack...I'm in the movie!!" And with those observations, Danny was unwittingly giving Michael Bay his formula to mindless action movies that net disgusting amounts of money (for those counting, Bay's latest Transformers movie grossed $100 million on its opening weekend, despite being labelled all but worthless by any critic worth his or her salt).

The ideas behind the movie are good, and some of the intentionally cheesy dialogue is funny enough. Among the highlights are the police station in Slater's world, where we see an amalgam of every action movie police station cliche in the book. An added gag is the pair of lines of mismatched cops who are being partnered up for their "buddy movie" pairings: old cop + young cop, real cop + cartoon cat cop, living cop + Humphrey Bogart's ghost cop, and on it goes. Such jokes border on Zucker brothers zaniness, but never quite go all the way, which is probably for the best.

While the gags are pretty good, the movie does lose steam about halfway through. I attribute this to just how much time Danny spends in Slater's movie world. Sure, a lot of the gags are pretty funny, but not all of them hit the mark. And there are actually moments when you get the sense that the director McTiernan fell into his own trap - he actually wants us to be enthralled by Slater's ridiculous exploits, rather than simply ask us to keep laughing at them. This incongruous tone is completely at odds with the point of the movie.

The Ripper - one of several uninspired elements of the film.
The idea of using villains from movies is great, but they
could have done far better than this bland parody.

This same shift into a real attempt at action movie intensity carries into the end of the film, at which point its lost any impact. The one saving ingredient is that of Benedict's attempt to draw various fictional film villains into the real world. However, even this intriguing plot device isn't used to much effect. What we end up with is simply one already-introduced Jack Slater villain and the personification of Death (in a pretty cool little cameo by Sir Ian McKellan, incidentally). Otherwise, why is the film asking me to take seriously the very thing that it just spent over an hour mocking? Poor planning, if you ask me.

To me, this is the textbook mediocre movie. I didn't feel like I wasted my time watching it, but I feel no need to ever watch it again. There's just enough merit to see you through the two-plus hour running time, but it's too inconsistent to be called anything more than a really good idea that couldn't quite live up to its vast potential. 

Top Secret! (1984)

Directors: Jim Abrahams, David and Jerry Zucker

Netflix Instant Watch? Yup.

Boy am I glad that my wife has just enough appreciation for goofy humor to sit through this one with me. I hadn't watched it in over 15 years, and she had never seen it.

90 minutes well-spent.

The Zucker brothers movies don't really require much explanation. If you've seen Airplane!, any of the Naked Gun series, or Kentucky Fried Movie, then you know what these guys are all about. You also know whether you like them or not. Top Secret! is no exception.

I think fewer people are familiar with this movie since it wasn't quite the hit that Airplane! or The Naked Gun were. I'm not completely sure why, though perhaps it was due to the musical numbers. For those who haven't seen it, Val Kilmer plays Nick Rivers, an Elvis-type rocker who goes to East Germany  to perform (this was in 1984, after all, so that was still fertile ground for storytelling). Sprinkled through the film are nearly a half dozen parodies of popular rock tunes from the 50s and 60s. They're chuckle-worthy since they do have some goofy lyrics and funny little sight-gags, like Rivers pantomiming morbidly realistic suicide scenarios while singing a cheesy love song. But mostly these song and dance numbers just drag a bit.

As with all of their movies, every element of the medium is
fair game for for a gag. Case in point - warping perspective
to have a dead-serious Nazi answer a ridiculously
massive telephone. Some of these visual jokes 
are easy to miss, but hilarious if you can catch them.

These aside, the movie's hilarious. Just as with all of their very best movies, the Zuckers and Abrahams made damn sure that the actors all played everything completely dead pan. This, of course, is the lifeblood of goofy comedy. Once it gets too kinetic or slapstick, the routines get very old very quickly. But when you have a stone-faced East German general stoically making dildo references, it's comedy gold.

In keeping with their strength of spoofing time-tested, formulaic genres, the Zuckers and Abrahams go after the classic popular spy movie. The great thing about these is that there is a clear love and eye for detail for the very genres that they're drawing so heavily from. It's only because we know how serious it's supposed to be when two spies are engaged in a clandestine meeting that it becomes hilarious when one of them gives the other an exploding cigar, acting just as serious through the entire ridiculous exercise. And just like any director of a good James Bond flick, the Zuckers and Abrahams always know what marks they're supposed to hit.

If you've never seen it and enjoy really goofy humor, or if you just haven't watched this one in a while, fire it up. It's a treat.