Three Recent Good Movies

David Brent (Ricky Gervais) explains the various misfortunes that have struck his original "Foregone Conclusion" bandmates.  

I recently got around to watching David Brent: Life on the Road (2016, dir. Ricky Gervais) via Netflix streaming, and was pleasantly surprised by how truly good it is. Surely of greatest interest to those viewers who (like me) are familiar with writer/director Ricky Gervais' seminal BBC series The Office (2001-03), this feature-length sequel does not require such familiarity in order to be thoroughly enjoyed. The film, documenting David Brent's life ten years after the end of The Office, features zero cameos from the original series cast and only one brief reference -- to Pete Gibbons, what else? -- that would constitute an in-joke. Life on the Road stands on its own.

I therefore recommend Life on the Road to any viewer fond of British comedy and/or Spinal Tap-style mockumentaries. Indeed, Life on the Road is a lot like a more downbeat, dry version of Spinal Tap, as the self-involved Brent sets off on an expensive and disastrous vanity tour to attempt to flog life into his non-starter career as a rock musician. Everyone around him, including his hired bandmates and road manager, find him musically silly and interpersonally odious, and say so in their ongoing interview segments.

Meanwhile, Brent's own interviews highlight his socially important lyrics -- he is a clueless, unconsciously racist white man inexplicably fixated on native Americans and disabled folks -- and the big plans he's got for his musical career once he's signed to a record label.

David Brent convinces his long-suffering bandmate Dom (Ben Bailey Smith) to don an ethnically inappropriate costume for a gig. 

In addition to being quite funny -- some of Brent's songs and concert sequences are especially outrageous and squirmy -- Gervais here deploys a climactic device similar to that he used in his brilliant HBO series Extras: he gives Brent a chance at emotional, if not musical, redemption. His tour fails but for the first time since the character's first appearance in 2001, David Brent seems to actually learn something of value from his mistakes. A melodramatic ploy? Yes. Effective and touching? Yes.

As he has shown again and again, Gervais is a master craftsman of character-driven comedies like this, and his return to his best-known character is hilariously funny and surprisingly poignant. Life on the Road is definitely worth a watch.

Daniel Kaluuya's spot-on performance as Chris anchors Jordan Peele's 
must-see horror film Get Out. 

Get Out (2017, dir. Jordan Peele) is a fun, timely, and darkly humorous horror film that is in serious contention to be the best film of the genre released this year. It really is that good. It is also rated PG-13 which means it isn't too gory and should be accessible to thriller fans.

Get Out's most obvious referents are The Stepford Wives (1975) and John Frankenheimer's Seconds (1966), yet Peele borrows concepts from those films (as well as visual ideas from The Shining etc.) and makes them very much his own. There is a strong sense of purpose and authorial voice in Get Out, including many wonderful comedic moments that perfectly break the tension -- just long enough to give the audience a brief respite from the thrills. As I discussed with my companions after the screening, I am most eager to see what Key and Peele and Keanu alum Jordan Peele does next as a director.

[UPDATE: Jordan Peele tells Business Insider that he's got four more planned "social thrillers" in the works.]

Most interesting to me is Get Out's knowing yet subtle riff on the ending of Night of the Living Dead, a film that obviously looms large for any genre fan when watching this movie, since it is one of the few other horror films ever to feature a black protagonist.

Timely due to its racially charged plot and thematics, Get Out lands because it is a well-crafted, thrilling movie, with lots of pathos and humor deftly interwoven with its scares and thrills. As this incisive critical essay by George Shulman notes,

the gift of Get Out is that its humor about the absurdities of race, and its playfulness with Hollywood genres of horror and thriller, displays the possibility of facing - exposing - this horror [of contemporary structural racism] in ways that cross racial lines, and by evoking affects other than self-righteous reproach and guilt. But the question remains whether this movie can - what act, event, or artifact possibly could - undo the knowingness by which Obama-era whites protect themselves from their implication in the horror, the horror.

Indeed. I know I over-use this adjective, but Get Out is truly brilliant -- equal parts thrilling, funny, and thematically poignant without ever being heavy handed. An absolute must-see.

Yet like Shulman, who wonders whether or not liberal white viewers will see themselves included in the film's critique of white obliviousness to racism, I hope Get Out can inspire the right kinds of discussions and reflections in its white viewers. The film's point is that even those of us who attempt not to be complicit in structural racism, are. We should enjoy this film as horror fans but seriously grapple with its implications as potential anti-racists. As Schulman poignantly writes:

did whites in the audience imagine themselves as exceptions, as exempt from the portrait of whiteness in the movie? When we were laughing at the fabulous humor, and when we felt terror at white predation, did we divide ourselves from whiteness by a kind of self-protective knowingness? Is that division exactly how Obama era politics could proceed while leaving the deep structure of white supremacy intact?

These are the right questions to ask and think about.

Amy Adams gives a riveting central performance in Arrival. As with Daniel Kaluuya's work in Get Out, the key concept here is empathy. 

I have been a fan of Quebecois director Denis Villeneuve since Prisoners (2013), and have been eagerly anticipating my chance to finally see his latest movie, the science-fiction drama Arrival (2016). I just saw it this weekend and I was not disappointed. In fact, I would call Arrival my favorite Villeneuve film and the best science-fiction film I have seen since, say, Moon (2009).

On the basis of the first three Villeneuve films I saw -- Prisoners, Enemy and Sicario -- I would have said that the director suffers from the same "brilliant setup goes off the rails in the third act" malady as does Danny Boyle. Not to the same degree as Boyle -- seriously, look at the climactic sections of 28 Days Later and Sunshine and you'll see what I mean -- but detectable nevertheless. For example, Prisoners seems to start off as a serious meditation on the moral and emotional price of torture, then becomes a Silence of the Lambs-esque serial killer thriller in its third act. Sicario is mainly a story focused on Kate (Emily Blunt) until she basically disappears in act three and the film turns into a revenge thriller centered on a different character.

I have still enjoyed each of these movies, especially Enemy and Sicario, but I have noticed this tendency toward third-act inconsistency each time.

This problem does not exist in Arrival, Villeneuve's best-conceived and most coherent film yet. The third-act payoff is brilliantly set up from the very beginning of the film, in a "show don't tell" manner that is hook-producing and ultimately enormously satisfying. I can't give away specifics but let me just say that this film knows what its purpose is from the outset and it pays it off in an artful and emotionally resonant way.

The terrific cast doesn't hurt either. Amy Adams is especially good, and she is well supported by Forest Whitaker, Jeremy Renner, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Mark O'Brien. The alien vessels and creatures are convincing and interesting, and the sci-fi thrills will remind genre-savvy viewers of analogous situations from James Cameron's The Abyss and The Terminator.

In short, Arrival is thinking-person's sci-fi with enough militaristic thrills and interesting plot twists to satisfy any viewer who does not absolutely require lots of explosions in order to enjoy a film like this (though there is one explosion). Beyond that, the film does what great sci-fi should: suggests an emotionally truthful idea about who we humans are and can be as a species and a society. Arrival may not deliver an especially profound or unique message -- it is something we've heard before for sure -- but in these troubled and divisive times, it is a timely and appropriate idea. As a recent Oscar reviewer wrote of Moonlight's much-deserved best picture win this year, "in choosing Moonlight the Academy went for empathy over escapism." Arrival goes for empathy and escapism, and succeeds at both. An engrossing must-see.

The heptopod sez: "You humans have got to get your shit together!"

Review: Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp (2015)

Distributed by Netflix as an eight-episode limited series, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp is a delightfully funny romp that gently parodies teen summer camp movies of the 1980s. It's also a prequel to the cult classic film Wet Hot American Summer (2001), written and directed by David Wain and Michael Showalter, who also co-helm the series.

It is hard for me to judge this film and follow-up prequel series with any pretense at objectivity. As a teen of the 1980s, I grew up on John Hughes films like Sixteen Candles (1984) and The Breakfast Club (1985) and raunchy teen comedies like Animal House, Meatballs (both 1979) and Porky's (1981) that the Wet Hot franchise so lovingly and wittily spoofs. I am the perfect target audience for Wain and Showalter's creations and enjoy both the film and show enormously.

What makes this series (and the original film) most special is its dynamite troupe of actors. What a treat it is to see the film's stellar cast -- Marguerite Moreau, Janeane Garofalo, Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler, Christopher Meloni, Molly Shannon, Elizabeth Banks, Paul Rudd, Michael Ian Black, Zak Orth, David Hyde Pierce, Ken Marino, and Joe Lo Truglio -- back together and doing their knowingly over-the-top thing again. Like its filmic predecessor, First Day of Camp intentionally camps it up (ha, ha), perfectly executing its warm yet ribald tone due to the earnestness with which it commits to the cliches of 80's teen movies. As other reviewers have noted, the prequel series is at least as funny as the 2001 film, so if you like the one, you should like the other.

[SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES AND FILM FOLLOW]

One of the greatest pleasures to be had watching the new Wet Hot prequels is how amusingly they play with the experienced viewer's expectations of what comes "next" in the original movie. The best example of this is the revelation that Gail's ex- ex- husband "Jonas," presumably just a random name given to a character we never see in the original film, is revealed in the prequels to be the former name of Gene (Meloni), Camp Firewood's lunatic camp cook. Indeed, Jonas/Gene's storyline is one of the best parts of the prequel series, involving as it does Gene's military past and an amazing climactic showdown with The Falcon, Ronald Reagan's assassin (Jon Hamm).

Newcomers Jason Schwartzman, John Slattery, Lake Bell, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, and Michael Cera all add much zaniness to the proceedings, with Schwartzman's Greg and Hamm's Falcon particular standouts. However, the heart of the series lies more so with old favorites like Beth (Garofalo), Katie (Moreau), Andy (Rudd), and Coop (Showalter). Of special note is the work of Elizabeth Banks, a comedienne I have long felt is somewhat under-deployed in many of her film appearances (e.g., The 40 Year Old Virgin, Role Models). I find Banks' work, especially in these Wet Hot prequels, hilarious. Lindsay's introduction in the cold open of episode 3 is a series high point -- really spot-on, campy stuff. I am quite pleased that the prequel series gives Lindsay (and Banks) more of a central role than the original film does.

In this same vein, First Day of Camp gives us back the Paul Rudd we know and love from comedies like Clueless, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I Love You, Man, and Role Models: the dimwitted fuckup with the heart of gold. Laughing at him chew scenery as disaffected slacker Andy is one of the great pleasures of Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp. Paul Rudd belongs in comedy.*

One could surely watch and enjoy the prequel series without having seen the original film. Still, one of the most pleasurable aspects of the series is how it sets up certain jokes in the film, giving them whole new layers of meaning. For example, when Beth is nervous in front of Henry the first time she meets him in the film, she offers an excuse about needing to meet "Jim Stansel," surely a throwaway name when first written and uttered. Yet the prequels bring Stansel to life and depict his dramatic exit from the series, making Beth's excuse extra-funny in retrospect. Another moment that is given additional weight by the existence of the prequels is Victor admitting to Neil he's a virgin near the end of the movie -- having seen his earlier braggadocio, this moment is even more meaningful now.

While less entertaining than the antics of the older counselors, the prequel series' (younger camper) Kevin storyline foreshadows Coop's in the film: each awkward guy ultimately fails to win the affection of a popular girl he desires. These two story arcs accurately deconstruct the fantasy of geeky men attracting women vastly out of their league --  a pernicious and damaging trope that haunts much geek-centered cinema.

I find the whole Wet Hot prequel series to be of roughly equal quality, but Episode 3 "Activities" reveals Lindsay's background and introduces a hilarious Chris Pine as has-been rocker Eric. Next to the Jonas/Gene origin story, I think the Lindsay - Eric arc is the next best in the series. The very soul of the camp is at stake, and it takes these two relative outsiders to save everyone in the end. Along the way, the show has lots of fun sending up Pine's overwrought rocker persona and playing to the hilt Lindsay's obsession with the man and his unfinished masterpiece. (More on that shortly.)

The next episode, "Auditions," is really top-notch as well, and in some ways this is where the series really gets rolling. We meet a key antagonist, the Falcon (Hamm), whose scenes are brilliant send-ups of 1980s spy thrillers like War Games (1983). Sorry Mad Men fans --  Jon Hamm is another guy I enjoy most in comedies. I believe this is also the first of two appearances by Showalter in a cameo as President Ronald Reagan. As a youth of the Reagan era I appreciate his take, and I like how the Reagan cameo "rhymes" with Showalter's appearance as talent show emcee Alan Shemper in the 2001 movie.

Susie and Claude share an intimate moment. 

Episode 5 "Dinner" parodies slasher horror (especially in JJ and Lindsay's adventure to the spooky abandoned cabin) and some action movie Rambo-ish business with Jonas versus Victor. Victor runs again! This episode also depicts Susie's tryst with Claude Dumet, a very amusing and well-handled situation somewhat reminiscent of Aaron and Gail's May - December relationship from the movie. Yet unline the Aaron - Gail pairing, the Susie - Claude romance does not lead to marriage and instead depicts Susie as a self-aware young woman making her own (somewhat taboo) choices.

Eps 6 and 7, "Electro/City" and "Staff Party" are, for me, most memorable for their wonderful depiction of the flowering of Ben and McKinley's relationship. As AV Club's Erik Adams says, Bradley Cooper’s most important scenes are with Michael Ian Black.

The Eric storyline culminates in an amazing rock finale in Episode 8 "End of Day," which concludes the series. Eric's show-stopping performance, an homage to similar teen-movie musical finales like those in Footloose and Revenge of the Nerds, is an amazing feat of earnest parody that provides an exciting climax for the series. Eric's performance of his musical magnum opus also reveals the source of the song we hear in the original film when Gene is training Coop -- it's "Higher and Higher":

Show me the fever / Into the fire / Takin' it higher and higher 

Nothing to fear / It's only desire / Takin' it higher and higher

Yeah! This is one of my favorite reveals of the whole series.

I'll conclude my review by saying spoiler-free that the final post-credits sequence of the eighth and final First Day of Camp episode is an absolutely perfect, emotionally satisfying way to end the episode and the series.

P.S. Great news, folks! Another entry in the Wet Hot American Summer franchise is on the way, an 8-episode sequel series set Ten Years Later.  

Neil sez: "Victor Pulak, you're okay by me!"

---
* Also deserving of mention are Rudd's turn as lamaze instructor Guy Gerricault in the late seasons of Reno 911! and his dramatic co-lead performance in Prince Avalanche. Despite my love of Paul Rudd, I do not enjoy the dumb, maddeningly boring Ant-Man (2015), a movie that half-assedly tries to be funny but fails.

More Thoughts About Trailer Park Boys

This is a follow-up to an earlier post about the Canadian single-camera comedy series Trailer Park Boys (2001-present). That previous post operates mostly at the micro level, walking the reader basically beat-by-beat through the first seven seasons of the series. This supplement will elaborate some big-picture thoughts about the broad arc of the series, touch upon a few aspects of its production history, and correct and/or clarify some evaluative statements I made last time around.

Seasons 1-6 of Trailer Park Boys constitute one chapter or era of the series, which we will call the "Cory and Trevor" era. Season 7 is the beginning of the post-Cory and Trevor era. That season's first episode, "I Fuckin' Miss Cory and Trevor," has Ricky and Julian explicitly discussing how much they miss Cory and Trevor, and the blank space left in the season 7 opening credits where Cory Bowles' and Michael Jackson's names formerly appeared seems a sign of how important they were to the series and how much they are missed (whatever on-set acrimonies may have existed).

To compensate for the loss of Cory and Trevor, the post-Cory and Trevor era adds new characters, like Don, Donna, and Leslie Dancer, and enhances the roles of certain characters already in the mix, like Phil Collins, Jacob Collins, Sam Losco, and Barb Lahey.* I enjoy the later seasons of the series, and am pleased that Cory comes back, now paired with Jacob Collins, in season 8. Yet I would never judge a Cory and Trevor purist who wished to pretend that only TPB seasons 1-6 exist. I have considered that stance and it is a beautiful vista, if not ultimately for me.

As Trailer Park Boys progresses, it becomes less mockumentary-ish and more sitcom-ish. It is, from the get-go, a tightly scripted show, but in the early days the "documentary" crew is acknowledged and integrated (and gunshot wounded!) more directly, and the show's situations feel more impromptu and chaotic. In later seasons, definitely from season 5 onward, the plots and situations seem more constructed. For example, season 7's "Three Good Men are Dead" breaks the mockumentary conceit completely: the perpetrators of the crime launching the episode would have taken out the camera crew to protect their secret. As "Trevor" actor Michael Jackson suggests, maybe the Steve French mountain lion episode in season 4 is a key harbinger of the series' later feel.

Lahey and Ricky team up (!) for the season 6 finale 
"Gimme My Fucking Money or Randy's Dead!"

Season 6 is one of the flat-out best seasons of Trailer Park Boys and it functions as an ideal ending point to the series' first era. Cory and Trevor go out on a high note, earning Ricky's gratitude for how well they set up his latest grow operation, and Ricky's season finale voice-over wrap-up is enormously satisfying. In contrast, the longer montage that closes season 7 is more touching and sentimental, yet it mostly just rehashes the same ideas the previous season's closer works through more nimbly.

Seven years elapse between the release of season 7 (2007) by Toronto-based Showcase Television and the release of season 8 (2014) by Netflix.

Season 8 begins a new production phase under the Swearnet banner, with an exclusive Netflix streaming distribution deal for Trailer Park Boys. Gone is Mike Clattenburg, who directed every season 1-7 episode. Now the series features a rotating slate of directors including Ron Murphy, Warren P. Sonoda, and cast members Cory Bowles, John Dunsworth, and Jonathan Torrens. The writing credits for the Netflix seasons shift entirely to the three principal actors -- John Paul Tremblay, Mike Smith, and Robb Wells -- with frequent contributions by Torrens.

Some of the new characters get to shine brighter in the new Netflix - Swearnet seasons, providing a welcome change of pace from the series' usual focus on Ricky, Bubbles, and Julian. I particularly enjoy Don and Donna in season 8, and the whole Donna - Barb - Sarah friendship that develops in season 9.

I love Barb's ninth season story line, especially her developing friendships 
with Sarah and Donna. 

Some of the best overall episodes not named on my previous post's top-six list include "The Cheeseburger Picnic," which features Lahey's best-ever "drunken" appearance at a public event in Sunnyvale; "I Banged Lucy and Knocked Her Up . . . No Big Deal," which has a great opening vignette introducing "Scrilla Villa" and, near episode's end, Randy's terrific parting speech as he is thrown out by Lahey and Barb; "Three Good Men Are Dead," with its awesome vengeance plot; and "Jump The Cheeseburger," whose true high point is Barb Lahey's bullhorn-enhanced soliloquy during her argument with Jim.

In the new, Netflix-produced seasons, I would single out as two of the best episodes "Friends with the Benedicts," during which Bubbles freaks out in a public laundromat, and "Piss," in which Ricky catapults piss-jugs into Sunnyvale. The puppet show in "Community Service and a Boner Made with Love" is also quite hilarious.**

"How do you fuck puppets up?" Julian asks Bubbles fatefully.

And though I mentioned it favorably in the earlier review, I erroneously forgot to place "Where the Fuck is Randy's Barbecue?" on the list of most essential episodes.

So, my revised list of Twelve Most Essential Trailer Park Boys Episodes consists of:

1. "Kiss of Freedom" (S03 Ep01)
2. "The Bible Pimp" (S02 Ep05)
3. "Jim Lahey is a Drunk Bastard" (S02 Ep02)
4. "The Delusions of Officer Jim Lahey" (S03 Ep07)
5. "The Green Bastard" (S04 Ep04)
6. "Conky" (S04 Ep05)
7. "Where the Fuck is Randy's Barbecue?" (S03 Ep06)
8. "The Cheeseburger Picnic" (S06 Ep02)
9. "Friends with the Benedicts" (S08 Ep06)
10. "Piss" (S09 Ep07)
11. "I Banged Lucy and Knocked Her Up, No Big Deal" (S07 Ep02)
12. "Jump The Cheeseburger" (S07 Ep07)

--
* Technically Phil Collins appears several times prior to his rise to regular-supporting-cast status in season 7. But he is not named in most of those earlier episodes -- he is usually just some guy who runs a hotel, drives a cab, etc.
** Since writing that earlier post, I have seen the Trailer Park Boys perform live in Buffalo, NY. Their stage show is quite funny, though less tightly structured than the average episode. The moment from "Community Service and a Boner Made with Love" in which Julian and Ricky vanish for awhile, leaving Bubbles onstage alone, reminds me of parts of their holiday-themed stage show.

Three Wonderful Recent-ish Movies

Over the past couple of months, I have seen a few films that stand out in a special way. These three -- What We Do in the Shadows, Nightcrawler, and The Skeleton Twins (all 2014) -- are, of the several films I have watched lately, the ones that gave me the most pleasure as I watched them and stuck with me most poignantly afterward.*

What We Do in the Shadows is a mockumentary comedy about a group of vampires living together as flatmates in Wellington, New Zealand. It is the outright funniest film I have seen all year (beating out Spy). The filmmakers really understand the classic tropes of the vampire genre. They skewer them all brilliantly. Furthermore, there are some delightfully unexpected twists, as when the newest member of the vampire clan brings his human "best mate" Stu over to meet his undead roommates -- and Stu ends up becoming the most popular member of the group.

Vladislav, Deacon, and Viago jam out in What We Do in the Shadows.

What We Do in the Shadows really nails the drily witty mockumentary form, standing alongside the Christopher Guest-directed classics Waiting for Guffman (1996), Best in Show (2000), and A Mighty Wind (2003) as an all-time great of this particular comedic subgenre. Like the Guest films that I assume inspired it, Shadows culminates in a big event that brings all the key characters together, in this case the annual Unholy Masquerade Ball. The events that transpire during and after that sequence alone are worth seeing the movie for, as are the flatmates' occasional run-ins with the local police.

Shadows contains a few moments of graphic blood and gore, though (to my eye anyway) these come across as more excessively Monty Python-esque than truly horrific. No, the dominant tone here is laugh-out-loud funny -- there is one sequence in the film, when  neat-freak vampire Viago is laying down newspapers to protect his couch before he attacks a victim, that had me belly laughing for quite some time.

Viago is a bit of a neat-freak. 

Despite its mild use of horror elements (in addition to the blood, there is one vampire attack that is rather sudden and unexpected), I would recommend What We Do in the Shadows to practically anyone. If you like comedy in general and/or witty mockumentaries in particular, you will find plenty to enjoy in Shadows.

Writer/director Dan Gilroy's Nightcrawler is also something of a comedy, serving as a bleak satire of the news production business. However, despite its darkly satirical tone and many absurdist moments, it probably has more in common with the urban noir thriller than with any other genre. It is more pulse-pounding than laughter-producing.

As A.J Snyder writes in his capsule review of Nightcrawler, "While much has been said about the intensity of [Jake] Gyllenhaal's performance, and rightfully so, I feel like the single greatest strength of the film is its allegory for capitalism's current mode of racing to the bottom-most line." That's it exactly. While Gyllenhaal's central performance is intense and intriguing and delightful, the whole film -- including Rene Russo's superb costarring turn -- is so cleverly put together and expertly paced that I was completely on the edge of my seat the whole time through.

Furthermore, the film has a clearly articulated central theme about the cruelty and inhumanity that lie at the heart of media consumerism which it conveys quite efficiently via what you see and experience, without undue expository dialogue. (Thematically it reminded me a bit of Sofia Coppola's underrated The Bling Ring.) 

Lastly, there is cinematographer Robert Elswit's (There Will Be Blood) sublimely photographed setting: the city of Los Angeles. Nightcrawler is an exemplary "L.A. film," joining the ranks of such classics as Chinatown, Shampoo, Heat, Collateral, Short Cuts, and Boyz n the Hood in taking full advantage of the particular way L.A. sprawls around its various disparate neighborhoods, crisscrossed by freeways. It's a weird place (both geographically and vibe-wise) that I always enjoy seeing depicted poetically on screen. Nightcrawler captures its unique qualities about as well as any film I've seen.

Iconic L.A. images captured by cinematographer Robert Elswit for Nightcrawler. 

Yes, Nightcrawler is one of the finest thrillers and one of the sharpest satirical dark comedies I have seen in quite some time. Packed with uniformly great performances, a tight, compelling script, and haunting L.A. cinematography, it will surely loom large in my End-of-Year reflections.**

Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader in the touching, heartful dramedy The Skeleton Twins.

Set in an unspecified small town ("near Woodstock") in upstate New York, The Skeleton Twins is a film that, like Nightcrawler, I intended to see in the theater but ended up seeing on Netflix streaming. The movie is a somewhat dark yet ultimately heartwarming dramedy about an estranged twin brother and sister coming back into each other's lives after a ten-year hiatus.

The Skeleton Twins' dark side comes in part from its engagement with the topic of suicide. The film opens with Milo (Bill Hader) making a suicide attempt, and when that fails, the hospital calls his sister Maggie (Kristen Wiig) to come pick him up just as she is about to make an attempt on her own life the very same day. The film treats this remarkable coincidence with dark humor, yet it also reveals later in the proceedings that the twins' father successfully killed himself when they were young, adding dramatic weight to the suicide theme. Unraveling why both siblings find themselves so unhappy with their lives, and how and why they drifted apart from each other for ten years, becomes the film's raison d'etre.

Milo and Lance get to know each other, with mixed results. 

Part of the problem on Maggie's side is her inability to remain faithful to Lance, her upbeat, kindly, yet dimwitted husband (played to perfection by Luke Wilson, always my favorite of the two Wilson brothers). Lance wants to have children but Maggie doesn't, and rather than confront him him with this, she has flings behind his back. Meanwhile, Milo rekindles an old relationship that causes major problems for himself and reopens old wounds between he and Maggie. All of this conflict is so well scripted and performed, and the casting (including Ty Burrell as Milo's sexually conflicted old flame) so spot-on, that the film is simply a delight to watch. Both Wiig and Hader deliver nuanced characterizations that allow us to feel great empathy for these two lost souls even as we watch them make repeated mistakes. And the moments in which they laugh and get along together are very natural, believable, and warm.

Kristen Wiig delivers a downbeat yet empathetic and lived-in performance as Maggie. 

Ultimately, The Skeleton Twins is a carefully sketched portrait of strained yet loving sibling relations, and while the film's climactic episode may feel a wee bit contrived to some viewers, it is emotionally correct, and the film ends on a lovely note of reconciliation, as comedies should.

Plus, any movie with an unruly kid flipping adults the bird automatically gets my vote:

Cullen flips the bird. 

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* I almost included a fourth film, Azazel Jacobs's Terri (2011), in this post, but despite its many delights and pleasures, that indie masterpiece is more offbeat and less plot-driven than any of the three I have included. I decided that it might be hard to recommend Terri to readers who don't enjoy meandering yet well-observed slice-of-life films about socially alienated weirdos quite as much as I do. You will be able to read my capsule review of Terri in this year's forthcoming End-of-Year Roundup.
** Here are links to my 2013 and 2014 End-of-Year Roundups. Yee-haw!

On Trailer Park Boys

I am a big fan of Trailer Park Boys (2001-present), a Nova Scotia-produced "mockumentary" comedy series about the wacky denizens of Sunnyvale Trailer Park, especially Julian, Bubbles, and Ricky. The show originally (seasons 1-7) aired on Canadian television, though I first saw it streaming on Netflix, which it still does. Netflix is now producing new seasons of the show: Seasons 8 and 9 (2014-2015) are available now and Seasons 10 and 11 are in the works.

Trailer Park Boys is wonderful because it is one of those comedies in which very smart people are making comedy about very dumb characters, doing so with a lot of warmth, humanity, and love. The show's messages are in fact quite humanistic and optimistic, despite the show's constant swearing, pervasive drug use, and occasional gunplay. There is absolutely no mean-spiritedness about this show that I have ever been able to detect in my repeated watchings. Most importantly, the show is consistently hilarious. I place it alongside Party Down, Arrested Development, Fawlty Towers, Pulling, Peep Show, and the British version of The Office as one of the all-time funniest and cleverest television comedies I have seen.

Comedy genius Christopher Guest describes British comedy as "Silliness framed in intelligence. Even when it's stupid, you know intelligent people are doing it and that makes it a different joke." This principle applies to Trailer Park Boys.

The first five seasons of Trailer Park Boys are all excellent, with seasons two, three, and five particular standouts. I would say that probably season three, the one in which Julian and Ricky and co. save money toward a cruise, is the all-around best, though I also have strong affinity for season two, the "Freedom 35" season featuring Ellen Page as Mr. Lahey's daughter Trina.

So maybe season two, the Ellen Page season, is the very best overall season of the show. Although I am partial to season one (for reasons I'll come back to near the end of the review), the show really hits its stride in season two. It includes fine episodes like "Jim Lahey is a Drunk Bastard" (Ep02), about a crucial trailer park supervisor election, "A Dope Trailer is No Place for a Kitty" (Ep04), depicting the burning of Bubbles' shed and his relocation to J-Roc's van, and "The Bible Pimp" (Ep05), featuring (among its many delights) some suspicious bible peddlers and several classic Sam Losco moments during an extended conflict over discarded hot dogs.

Sam Losco will be sure to take care of the problem. 

That said, "Kiss of Freedom," the season three opener, is probably the best episode of the entire series. It is tightly scripted with a brilliant climactic payoff involving Jim Lahey's bare bum and it stands as one of the clearest articulations of the whole series' core values. In the episode, Ricky goes from prince to pauper in swift and hilarious fashion, yet he never loses sight of what's most important to him: his family, especially his daughter Trinity. "Kiss of Freedom" is as funny as any TPB episode but is also has the most heart of any of them.

Two highly enjoyable musically themed episodes, "Who's the Microphone Assassin?" and "Closer to the Heart," occupy the middle of season three.

Late in season three, "Where the Fuck is Randy's Barbecue" (S03 Ep06) is a favorite, especially Ricky's balcony pepper spray battle with an elderly man and Lahey and Randy's big reveal at the end. Plus this episode introduces Constable Erica Miller into the mix and opens with one of the best Ricky vs. Randy battles, culminating in a spatula spanking for the ages.

"We're about to sail into a shit tidepool, Randy, so we better pull in the jib 

before it gets covered with shit."

Really, the whole narrative arc of season three, with the boys saving for a cruise and Constable Erica Miller complicating things for Julian, is pretty damn good.

By contrast, season four is a bit uneven, with flat-out great episodes sitting alongside some pretty mediocre ones. Yes, "The Green Bastard" (S04 Ep04), with its mighty showdown in the wrestling ring, is one of the best eppies ever, and "Conky" (S04 Ep05) is wonderfully off the rails, but "Rub 'N Tiz'zug" (Ep03) ain't great, recycling Cyrus as its villain in a mostly uninspired plot. And "If you Love Something Set it Free" (Ep06), the one with Steve French, bores me a little too. But the season finale, "Working Man," is pretty damn great, doing what most of the best eppies by this point in the game tend to do: going over the top.

Season four's outdoor dope fields, located away from the park, are clever way to integrate new locales into the series. I especially like the use of the King of Donair as a kind of funky musical hangout in "Working Man," yet overall there isn't much urgency in this season until right near the end. "Propane Propane," while not the most tightly scripted episode, flows well and has some terrific bits like Lahey and Randy's "cowboy and indian" outfits and blind Bubbles trying to get his rig license. "Propane Propane" makes for a good two-parter with the season finale, "Working Man," which is a pretty terrific episode culminating in Mr. Lahey's full-on showdown with Ricky in downtown Dartmouth.

"You just opened Pandora's Shitbox, Ray!"

Season five is especially good. In contrast to the somewhat meandering season four, the "hash driveway" meta-storyline in season five is awesome. It raises the stakes, fuels dramatic/hilarious tensions between Ricky and Julian, and keeps things geographically where they should be: in the trailer park. "The Fuckin Way She Goes," "Don't Cross the Shit Line," and "Jim Lahey is a Fucking Drunk and He Always Will Be" are especially superb season five episodes. Maybe the only somewhat weak season five eppy is "The Winds of Shit."

[UPDATE 5/22/2015: I just re-watched "The Winds of Shit" and now regret naming it as a weak episode. It really isn't. It features Mr. Lahey explaining the "shit barometer" to Bubbles, one of Ricky's best negotiations with local law enforcement, and a sweet finale in which Ricky apologizes to Trinity after he is caught in a deception. These wonderful details and nuances that come to life anew with every re-watch exemplify something that is true of the series in general: it is a very confident show. I always feel like Trailer Park Boys knows where it is going, both on the micro- and macro-levels. Bravo.]

In any case, Lahey's obsession with his "shitmoths," the liquor bottles ornamenting the interior of his trailer from "Don't Cross the Shit Line" onward, is fricking priceless.

Special note on the Bladerunner reference in "Give Peace a Chance," the season five opener: Ricky and Bubbles discuss the film during their visit to Terry and Dennis's place, then outside Lahey's trailer Bubbles looks at a bee yard ornament, an homage to Olmos' origami unicorn.

Season six is also pretty good, it's the last Cory and Trevor season and it ends well.

[UPDATE 5/26/2015: Wow! Season six RULES. The season opener has Lahey fighting Trevor and Cory inside their new "Convenients Store," episode two "The Cheeseburger Picnic" is a great one, and "High Definition Piss Jugs" -- with guest star Steve Rogers and the debut of Bubbles' Kittyland Love Center -- probably belongs on the list of all-time best eppies. The Rashomon-like revelations of "Halloween 1977" tell a crucial part of Jim Lahey's back story, plus we get to see young Julian, Ricky, and Bubbles in their Chewbacca and C-3P0 costumes. And that episode's opening vignette, in which Bubbles counsels Randy about some inexplicable but ultimately "normal" sexual feelings he's having, is another favorite. Then Sam Losco violently returns for season closer "Gimme My Fucking Money or Randy's Dead!" Good times!]

Sebastian Bach is truly hilarious in Season 7 Episode 4 "Friends of the Road."

Season seven is diminished by the absence of Cory and Trevor, yet features some great Sam Losco stuff (him wooing Barb Lahey, singing at the nightclub, etc.). Also, the guest appearance of Sebastian Bach in "Friends of the Road" is an exhilarating high point of the entire series. Sebastian Bach is fuckin' funny!

Though I like the campfire scene near the end, and love that the music of Kim Mitchell saves the day, I nevertheless declare "We Can't Call People Without Wings Angels" to be the weakest of season seven and possibly the series. It's too narrative-driven and there isn't enough time alotted to spontaneous comedy gags (though Ricky slipping down the riverbank multiple times is priceless).

"Jump the Cheeseburger" is awesome though.

Season eight is worth watching, it is solid but maybe not great. Season nine, however, is really strong, maybe the best season since six or even five. The stuff with Ricky's manger and Willy the goat is really terrific, as is the storyline with J-Roc's long lost son.

To bring this back to the beginning, season one tends to get slightly weaker reviews due to its slower first couple of episodes. I love those early character-builders, however, and would place midseason episodes "Mr. Lahey's Got My Porno Tape" and "I'm Not Gay, I Love Lucy. Wait a Second, Maybe I am Gay." alongside other series-best nominees.

Ricky and this bank employee on the right have a glorious altercation midway through season one episode "I'm Not Gay, I Love Lucy. Wait a Second, Maybe I am Gay." 

To sum up, I agree with this:

"Imagine the consistently taut plotting and surprising humor of the Simpsons set in Desperate Living's landscape of trash and indignantly crass characters and you've basically got Trailer Park Boys." -- Lily Sparks

Ricky's finest hour. The choice he makes here catalyzes a remarkable climactic incident in "Kiss of Freedom," my choice for series-best episode of Trailer Park Boys.

Trailer Park Boys' Six Most Essential Episodes:

1. "Kiss of Freedom" (S03 Ep01)
2. "The Bible Pimp" (S02 Ep05) (esp. as a stand-alone)
3. "Jim Lahey is a Drunk Bastard" (S02 Ep02)
4. "The Delusions of Officer Jim Lahey" (S03 Ep07)
5. "The Green Bastard" (S04 Ep04)
6. "Conky" (S04 Ep05)

It's splitting hairs between those top three. "Jim Lahey is a Drunk Bastard," the election episode, may actually be the single best episode, or else "Kiss of Freedom," for the reasons stated earlier. "The Bible Pimp" has one of the very best opening vignettes (see list below) and probably works best as a stand-alone introduction to the series since the impact of "Drunk Bastard" and "Kiss" may depend upon knowing the back stories of Jim Lahey & Randy and Ricky & Trinity, respectively. I could also name "The Delusions of Officer Jim Lahey" as a particular standout, featuring "Deputy" Randy and Officer Lahey's attempt to clean up the streets of Sunnyvale once it is temporarily declared a town. Hell, any episode that commences with Jim Lahey declaring "I'm getting drunk today. Big time!" is obviously going to be momentous.

Bubbles vs. Tania and Hampton in the opening vignette of "The Bible Pimp," one of the most hilarious openers and all-time funniest stand-alone episodes of Trailer Park Boys.

Trailer Park Boys' Five Funniest Opening Vignettes:

1. "A Man's Gotta Eat" (S04 Ep02) has the BEST cold open of the whole series, involving Dino the satellite television guy. Listen carefully to Bubbles during this one, then, at the end, sit back and enjoy Ricky's classic van-windshield-trashing.
2. "The Bible Pimp" (S02 Ep05), a vignette in which an interesting Socratic dialogue between Bubbles and the Bible salespeople takes place.
3. "Where the Fuck is Randy's Barbecue" (S03 Ep06) has one of the best Ricky vs. Randy battles featuring an epic spatula spanking.
4. "I'm Not Gay, I Love Lucy. Wait a Second, Maybe I am Gay." (S01 Ep05), depicting the "family day" battle, in which Ricky grapples with Randy while wearing an MLK shirt.
5. "Rub N' Tizzug" (S04 Ep03): The baseball bat-wielding samsquamsh battle.

Mr. Lahey sez: "Don't cross the shit line."

Bonus Afterthought: IF you like Trailer Park Boys, then it is probably worth your time to check out Swearnet: The Movie (2014). I haven't seen any of the other TPB films, of which there are several.

UPDATE 10/17/2015: I have now seen Trailer Park Boys: The Movie (2006) and can report that it is delightful. Maybe not as consistently great as the best of the TV episodes, but surely better than the worst of them. Good solid fun. Lots of cute kittens.

UPDATE 10/19/2015: I have also just seen Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day (2009). It is even more tightly scripted and generally funnier than TPB: The Movie. Highly recommended! (It also occurs to me at this point that I should do a supplemental post listing all the TPB seasons and films in chronological order. There are a number of films and specials -- about six -- in addition to the regular seasons of the show, and each seems to fall at a different point in the show's internal timeline.

"Ispo fuck off-o!"