Category Archives: indie comedies

indie comedies

Other People’s Parties

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Other People’s Parties (2009) -Written and directed by R.A. White.

This is an ultra quirky, uneven and sometimes awful indie comedy that nevertheless has some redeeming qualities (I think).

I almost turned it off early as the first few scenes just showed people bickering pointlessly. Yet, being too lazy to switch it off I stuck with it. I suppose it can be categorized as a chick flick, as it’s mainly about the contentious friendship between two women (Molly Bryant & Tamara Baranov Ham) who are trying to start a party planning business with little success.

Then it turns into a kind of road movie as they drive into the desert and stay at a resort where they appear to be the only guests. They get drunk and do some peyote with the wacky owner of the resort. Through a bizarre series of events, this leads to them booking a Hollywood party and more chaos ensues.

Other People’s Parties, as I indicated, starts off rather weakly. It is populated with lots of boring suburbanites and a bunch of guys playing poker. By the second half, however, it starts to take on the kind of offbeat and zany spirit I like in indie films.

I found this rather obscure film on Netflix and gave it 3 stars, which is probably generous but I have a soft spot for films that are so unconventional that you never know what’s going to happen next.

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    Young Adult (2011) – Original Dark Dramedy

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    Young Adult is a surprisingly interesting and original movie that might be called a dark dramedy. My expectations for this film were not especially high, and at first I ignored its presence in the list of Netflix new releases. As it turned out, however, I was pleasantly surprised by it.

    Charlize Theron plays Mavis, a woman who is not really a young adult (she’s 37), but writes books for that age group. She is the type of single, professional, big city thirty-something that you find in a typical Hollywood romantic comedy.

    That, however, is where the similarity ends. Mavis is not the average, sweet character you find in such movies, but utterly self-absorbed, most likely an alcoholic and possibly suffering from one or more personality disorders. Still, she is not entirely unsympathetic, at least if you have a tendency to prefer antiheroes (or anti-heroines) to the virtuous yet bland good guys/gals who inhabit mainstream films.

    Mavis gets an announcement in her inbox that an ex-boyfriend is a new father. She randomly decides that this is a clue from the universe that she should return to her hometown and try to reignite this relationship from decades ago. It hardly needs to be pointed out that this scheme is ill-thought out, or not thought out at all. Yet Charlize Theron manages to make Mavis believable as she pursues her obsession.

    What happens for the duration of Young Adult is less interesting than the way the characters interact. Mavis’ ex is a rather typical small town nice guy named Buddy (Patrick Wilson), who is ultimately forced to reject the increasingly irrational Mavis.

    The only anchor Mavis has in her hometown of Mercury is Matt (Patton Oswalt), a nerdy, disabled and possibly gay former classmate from high school. He attempts to talk Mavis out of her plans to break up Buddy’s family. While she doesn’t listen, the strange friendship that develops between Mavis and Matt prevents her from going off the deep end.

    Young Adult was directed by Jason Reitman, who has made a couple of other outstanding yet low key dramas –Juno (starring Ellen Page) and Up in the Air (starring George Clooney). It was written by Diablo Cody, who also wrote the script for Juno.

    I admire the way Young Adult presents us with a character who has blatant and probably incurable flaws, yet doesn’t reduce her to a caricature or even a villain. The few films that dare to buck the saccharine plot lines of conventional romances and romantic comedies usually go to the opposite extreme, flaunting their cynicism and the conclusion that everyone is corrupt and selfish beyond redemption.

    Young Adult certainly heads in that direction, but has more nuances and ends on an ambiguous note. Mavis can be seen as almost a parody of the negative Generation X stereotype. She is sarcastic and utterly narcissistic, her values apparently formed entirely by popular culture. We see evidence of this as we hear the lines she writes for her teen romances (many of which she steals by eavesdropping on actual conversations).

    If you read a typical book on screenwriting, or attend one of those weekend workshops, you’ll be told that the protagonist has to grow or change in some significant way by the end. The same advice is given to aspiring novelists. Apparently, the experts who dispense this type of wisdom haven’t heard of postmodernism or seen many films not made in America.

    Whether Mavis “grows” or learns anything by the concluding scene of Young Adult is actually a difficult and interesting question. This very ambiguity is one of the things I like so much about the film.



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      God Bless America -Bobcat Goldthwait

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      God Bless America, written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait is billed as a black comedy that satirizes modern American culture. It’s not really much of a satire, though, as the pop culture that it portrays is not much of an exaggeration of reality.

      The black comedy part comes in the form of Frank (Joel Murray) and Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr), who become serial killers who kill supposedly deserving victims for their political or cultural transgressions (or, in some cases, merely because they are rude). Frank is a divorced, middle-aged guy who has just been fired and diagnosed with a terminal illness. Roxy is a teenage misfit who becomes his sidekick on a cross country rampage.

      This film can be seen as an extremely low brow version of Network (1976), as many of the long-winded tirades that Goldwaith puts in Frank’s mouth are reminiscent of the “I’m mad as hell” speech from that far superior film. This movie is full of paradoxes and ironies, and I’m not sure that they are intended.

      To begin with, this often self righteous bromide against pop culture was made by a man whose main claim to fame was starring in the slapstick Police Academy movies of the 1980s. I’ve also seen bits and pieces of Goldwaith’s standup performances and I’m not exactly clear how his type of humor is so much more highbrow than the kind he clearly loathes in God Bless America.

      Of course, one thing that Frank keeps repeating is that his main problem with modern culture is how mean and unkind it is. Yet, when we watch him channel surfing, it clearly goes beyond that. What’s obviously meant to jump out at us is the sheer mindlessness and idiocy of a culture that worships celebrities and finds nothing funnier than pure stupidity.

      Popular culture makes an extremely easy target for this type of argument, and considering this, God Bless America could have done a much better job of satirizing it. The problem is, this film has a basically teenage sensibility. If it had been made by some kid with a $2500 budget, I’d be more forgiving of its simplicity and immaturity. Both Frank and Roxy are constantly having gleeful discussions about who deserves to be killed. The main underlying irony of the film is that it focuses on shows like American Idol as the epitome of decline, while  itself displaying a much more fundamental symptom of cultural depravity -the automatic dehumanization of people who you don’t like, agree with or who offend you in any way.

      While this is ostensibly a comedy -and there are a few laughs, to be sure- you can’t overlook the fact that Goldthwait is obviously using this movie as a mouthpiece for his own beliefs. Given this, there’s something perverse about advocating wonton violence in the name of kindness. Many of the people who are killed have committed rather minor “crimes,” such as making noise during a movie or taking up two parking spaces. In the final scene, someone is blown away simply because he confesses to a desire to be on TV.

      It doesn’t take an intellectual giant to see that modern American culture is largely a wasteland. Unfortunately, God Bless America is more a manifestation of this than an antidote.

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        Rid of Me -Culture Clash in the Suburbs

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        Note: This review has recently been re-published on Devtome.

        Rid of Me is a good example of the kind of indie film that’s fun to discover, despite its flaws. I cannot say it’s a great film, but it’s certainly original, funny and insightful at times. On the other hand, it’s also uneven and some of the characters are too much like caricatures.

        On Netflix, it’s described as a black comedy and this is fairly accurate. It follows the travails of Meris (Katy O’Grady), a housewife who reluctantly moves to Portland with her husband Mitch (John Keyser). As soon as they arrive, things go badly for her. It turns out that Mitch, who is from Portland originally, has a whole clique of friends, as well as an ex-lover, with whom he grew up. These people are immediately portrayed as the worst possible stereotypes of suburban conformists. Meris cannot fit in with these people, and soon her marriage falls apart.

        Rid of Me opens in an interesting and somewhat shocking manner. The music and ambiance resemble those of a horror movie as it begins with a rather gruesome (though not violent) scene that is actually from the middle of the film. It’s something you’d never see in a mainstream film, though I’m sure many viewers would be happy to never see anything like it.

        The first problem with the whole scenario is that, while Mitch’s friends are wholly unsympathetic -in case we had any doubt how vile they are, they exhibit blatant racism towards an Islamic couple- Meris herself comes across as so socially awkward that it’s difficult to completely sympathize with her. That is, it would be hard for anyone to warm up to someone who only stares and stammers when you talk to them.

        I suppose we have to forgive the film, or more properly writer and director James Westby for making Mitch and his friends almost unbelievably obnoxious and insensitive. After all, the film is basically a satire about mainstream suburban America. Yet it’s a little hard to believe that such people in a place like Portland would be quite so narrow minded and intolerant, at least openly.

        As the film progresses, it goes in a completely different direction as Meris and Mitch divorce. Meris gets a job at a candy shop, where she is befriended by an ultra alternative girl named Trudy. She soon falls in with a whole subculture of misfits, who dress in black, get wasted and show a thorough contempt for anything middle class -such as Meris’s ex husband and his friends.

        The alternative characters in Rid of Me are just as extreme and stereotypical as the suburbanites in their antisocial posturing. Ultimately, Meris manages to find a kind of middle ground when she hooks up with a fellow misfit (albeit a more mellow sort than her new alternative friends), a record store clerk who shares many of her bizarre mannerisms to an unlikely degree. For the most part, however, the film draws an extreme line between the two extremes to make it’s point, and I suppose for laughs. One of Meris’s co-workers at the candy shop, an ultra straight woman who is a stickler for the rules states, “I hate alternative people.” Does anyone really say things like that?

        Rid of Me is one of those interesting indie films that works in some places but not others. At a certain point, it sort of drags and becomes repetitive as Meris goes back and forth between missing her old life and embracing her new one.

        All in all, Rid of Me is a mostly compelling and funny portrayal of culture clash that doesn’t always hit the mark but is worth watching for the times it does.

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          indie comedies, Television

          Portlandia -Land of Slackers, Bobos and Hipsters

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          I recently watched the entire first season of Portlandia on Netflix streaming. Prior to this, I had never heard of the show. It began last year on IFC (Independent Film Channel), which, along with the Sundance Channel, is one of the few cable channels that provides alternatives to the generic Hollywood blockbusters that dominate most of the movie stations. Unfortunately (or maybe not, for the most part), I only have basic cable so I’ve missed out on the latest IFC offerings.

          I immediately found Portlandia to be a funny, refreshing and original series that is way more inspired than the typically bland sketch comedy you’ll find on network shows like Saturday Night Live (even though co-star Fred Armisen is a SNL cast member -but he’s one of the writers and producers of Portlandia).

          While this show is, on the surface, a satirical look at a certain subculture of Portland, it’s really a lot more than that. For one thing, the type of people it mocks are certainly found in many other places. Brooklynites have recognized some of the hipster stereotypes, and, in true postmodern form, a parody of this parody called Brokelandia has already appeared on the internet. You’ll also find the type of slackers, bobos, the tediously politically correct and militant vegetarians in towns like Santa Cruz, Boulder and parts of the Hudson Valley region of New York (where I currently reside), such as Woodstock and New Paltz.

          Most of the skits feature co-creators Fred Armisten and Carrie Brownstein, who are adept at playing everything from obnoxious yuppies to hardcore feminists. There are also notable guest stars. In one episode, indie film favorite Steve Buscemi wanders into a feminist bookstore staffed by Carrie and Fred (in drag), who refuse to let him use the bathroom until he buys something.

          In another great skit, singer Aimee Mann appears as a housecleaner being harassed by the two co-stars, who alternately fawn over her and accuse her of misdeeds such as stealing. What I appreciate about the acting and writing of such skits is that they contain equal parts truth and over-the-top parody. In fact, I can’t recall more sharply written sketch comedy since the Tracy Ullman show (from whence the Simpsons originated) back in the 90s. She also had a knack for capturing the inflections of the tediously hip bourgeoisie.

          Aside from yuppies/bobos and political activists, the series also pokes fun at the chronically unambitious and underemployed. As one character says in the very first episode, “Portland is where young people come to retire.”

          Portlandia does not exactly portray a realistic cross section of Portland, or any other place, nor does it try to. I haven’t spent much time in Portland, but it’s safe to assume that it’s inhabited by regular working folks, conservative churchgoers and even some rednecks along with the bobos, slackers and hipsters portrayed in the show. That’s okay, though, as the point is to hone in on a particular set of stereotypes.

          Although Portlandia is satire that has some bite, it’s unlikely to offend any of the city’s denizens, except perhaps those that are truly humor challenged. I can confess that before watching this series Portland was fairly high up on my list of places I’d consider moving to, and the show certainly hasn’t changed my mind about this. I can only hope that it doesn’t make the place so hip that it drives rents and real estate values through the roof!

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            The Last Big Thing

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            The Last Big Thing (1996), newly released on DVD

            I first saw The Last Big Thing shortly after it was released, some twelve years ago and thought it was brilliant and hilarious. Amazingly enough, it still holds up today. On the DVD cover this film is described as a “scathing satire of modern-day Los Angeles.” What is so interesting and original about it, however, is that it’s at least as much a satire of alternative culture and cultural criticism as it is of mainstream culture.

            The hero/anti-hero is Simon Geist, an intellectual slacker/cultural critic who pretends to edit a magazine called The Next Big thing in order to make fools of all the desperate people who want to be famous in L.A. Of course, Geist is so humorless and sophomoric in his judgements that most of the time we are laughing at him rather than his targets. Writer-director Dan Zukovic, who plays Geist, made no attempt to make him likable or sympathetic.

            Certainly, The Last Big Thing satirizes the silliness of pop culture (which, going by this film, hasn’t really changed that much in fifteen years; except for the absence of cell phones, it could have been filmed today), such as rock bands obsessed with 1970s sitcoms, but if there is a message at all, it’s that you can’t look down on the rest of society from a great height, as Simon Geist attempts to do, without becoming ridiculous and, ultimately a hypocrite.

            Aside from the great performance by Zukovic, Susan Heimbeinder as Geist’s girlfriend, with her bizarre mannerisms and brilliant sense of physical comedy, adds to the absurdity of it all. Geist, like every college radical, underground magazine publisher, is obsessed with creating a movement that can’t be “co-opted.” Meanwhile, his idea of a grand statement is imitating Munch’s The Scream while staring into a chrome garbage can. As someone in the film, I don’t recall who, points out, there is a Warhol-esque theme to the whole thing. The Last Big Thing succeeds at being both a criticism and a meta-criticism of modern culture.

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            The Invention of Lying film review

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            This is a movie I started watching with very modest expectations, given the gimmicky sounding premise (an alternative world where lying is unknown). The film surprised me with funny and original satire, and the promise of a possibly insightful look at the very concepts of truth and lies.

            Mark (Ricky Gervais) is an average, perhaps a little below average guy who has reached his 40s without achieving much success in either career or relationships. He is a screenwriter on the verge of being fired. The entire notion of screenwriting, of course, has to be rethought in a world without lies! Lacking the ability to create fiction, they must churn out incredibly boring documentaries.

            Soon after being fired, and called a loser by more than one always-honest co-worker, Mark is also informed by a girl he has a crush on (Jennifer Garner) that he is too fat and ugly to be a match for her. Mark’s life looks grim, but then, just as he’s about to be evicted from his apartment, he makes a radical discovery -he is able to fabricate things. Since no one is familiar with lies, he is able to talk money out of a bank teller and a woman who is a perfect stranger into a hotel room (telling her that the world will end if they don’t have sex).

            Some of the best and funniest early scenes are simple, tossed out lines, the kind you might find on The Simpsons. Since even advertisements must be truthful in this world, we get some hilariously honest descriptions of popular products like Coke and Pepsi. It’s surprising that these products were mentioned by name in a less than flattering way, in a kind of anti-product placement for a change. A nursing home has a sign outside that reads, “A Sad Place Where Old People Come to Die.” Truth, we are reminded, is not always pretty.

            Unfortunately, The Invention of Lying is not able to maintain the same strong writing it starts with. The decline comes soon after the film becomes a satire about religion. Mark’s mother is dying, and, to comfort her, he tells her that death does not mean eternal emptiness but a mansion in the sky where all your loved ones are waiting. Next, the whole world wants to know about this afterlife. Mark, then, invents a Man In The Sky, and we learn how the concept of God was invented, at least from an atheist’s point of view.

            No doubt many people would be offended by this poke at religion. For me, the problem is that it starts the film on a downward spiral after a strong beginning.
            The religious issue is simply too broad, so instead of examining the truly interesting and original ideas that surround truth and lies in an everyday context, we get a rather banal (if still amusing at times) explanation for why people believe in God.
            Then, towards the conclusion, even the pseudo-religious theme fades away and the film devolves into a standard Hollywood romantic comedy ending.

            I might be less harsh about The Invention of Lying if it hadn’t sucked me in early with the promise of something bordering on the profound. Why do I say this? Well, the very notion of connecting lying with fiction, while not completely original, gets to the very core of things like art and ethics. For example, it leads to questions like, does lying actually serve a necessary purpose for relationships and society?
            It’s the kind of thing seldom dealt with in movies, and the fact that The Invention of Lying started off by handling such a heavy theme in a light and satirical manner was truly impressive.

            Once the Man In the Sky issue started, however, the sharp edge began to dull. The ending is pure cliche, with Mark interrupting a wedding ceremony. I wonder how often, outside of movies, anyone has actually answered the question rhetorically asked at weddings, “If anyone has reason to object…”

            So, The Invention of Lying is something of a mix, starting off as an original satire and turning into a typical genre flick. If you don’t expect a profound discourse on aesthetics, as I foolishly did, and aren’t overly sensitive about religion being ridiculed, you might enjoy it.

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            indie comedies

            The Babysitters (2007)

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            The Babysitters (2007)
            Director: David Ross
            Starring Katherine Waterson and John Leguizamo

            The Babysitters is a curious movie that is entertaining yet doesn’t quite achieve coherence. It could be a dark satire about modern suburbia, an amoral, hedonistic comedy about teenage prostitution or a cautionary, moralistic tale about teenage prostitution. Instead of settling on one of these modes, Babysitters hedges its bets and veers awkwardly among them.

            The movie starts with high school student Shirley (Katherine Waterson) babysitting for a family and becoming romantically involved with the father, Michael (John Leguizamo). Shirley appears to be a shy, demure teenager who develops a crush on an older man, while Michael is an unhappily married businessman.

            After Michael kisses Shirley after driving her home, he gives her money, presumably out of guilt. From this, Shirley develops the idea to start a prostitution ring at her high school and proceeds to recruit her friends. Michael, meanwhile, tells his friends about the new kind of “babysitting” service and things move quickly from here.

            Both Shirley and Michael are played a bit too sympathetically for the movie to really work as a dark satire. Shirley doesn’t seem like someone who would suddenly turn into a streetwise madam overnight, while Michael seems too guilt-ridden to be telling all of his neighbors and business associates about his new vice.

            The Babysitters cannot help but be an essentially amoral film that seduces the audience with the taboo subject of sex between middle-aged men and high school girls. The moralistic tone it takes at times, and especially at the conclusion, seems disingenuous in a movie that mostly treats its subject with such flippancy.

            The performances, especially by Leguizamo and Waterson are good, but their characters really don’t gel with the script. The lesson here is that if you are going to make a movie about a controversial subject, you may as well take it to an extreme rather than do it halfway and try to please everyone. The problem with The Babysitters is that it will not really please anyone; it will offend those who find the subject matter intrinsically distasteful, and it will disappoint anyone looking for cutting edge satire or hedonistic fun.

            indie comedies

            Offbeat Comedies

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            Note: I have recently published a slightly edited version of this article on Devtome.

            Comedies have always been popular, but most fall into a sadly limited number of categories –romantic comedy, teen comedy, sophisticated type comedy, and so forth. That isn’t to say that some of these films cannot be entertaining and quite funny. But as as this site is mainly about independent films, I thought I’d take a closer look at some truly offbeat comedies, some you may not even be familiar with.

            Schizopolis             (1997) is one of Steven Soderbergh’s earlier films, before he became more successful and mainstream (and arguably less interesting). This is a movie that lives up to it’s name. Soderbergh himself plays two roles in this meandering, bizarre story –if it can even be called that– of suburban life, corporate idiocy and a strange cult that looms in the background. There is little coherent structure to Schizopolis. It’s the kind of movie you either get in some way, and find funny, or not. If you like offbeat films, you might want to try it.

            The House of Yes             (1997), directed by Mark Waters and stars Parker Posey and Josh Hamilton. This is a film that’s almost too bizarre, and occasionally violent, to be considered a pure comedy. On the other hand, it’s also too bizarre to be anything but a comedy, albeit a dark one. It’s the story of a rather normal young man who thinks he is being taken to the normal home of a new girlfriend (Tori Spelling). Unfortunately, the house in question is inhabited by a psychotic brother and sister team who are living out a JFK fantasy. Parker Posey gives a great performance as the nearly foaming-at-the-mouth Jackie O.

            Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) -based on Hunter S. Thompson’s book of the same name. Starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro, who are both superb as, respectively (but definitely not respectably), Thompson and his almost equally drug-crazed lawyer. This is a film that I think many mainstream critics felt obliged to put down, simply for the unapologetic and constant drug use. It’s also a good indication of how little these critics can be depended on for good information when it comes to anything vaguely unconventional, for this is a brilliant and hilarious movie. It hardly glamorizes drug use, as it depicts a veritable nightmare existence, but it does this in a way that also illustrates the equal absurdity of “straight” life as well.

            Citizen Ruth (1996) -directed by Alexander Payne, starring Laura Dern. The abortion debate may seem like an unlikely subject for a comedy, but this one succeeds brilliantly. Laura Dern plays a glue-sniffing pregnant woman named Ruth who must choose whether or not to have her child. Both sides of the issue are hilariously skewered in this dark comedy that might make you think differently about this emotionally charged issue.

            Strangers With Candy (2005)- directed by Paul Dinelly, staring Amy Sedaris. This is based on the Comedy Central show of the same name. Amy Sedaris returns to her role as Jerri Blank, the absurdly out of place 47 year-old high school student.
            Stephen Colbert and Greg Holliman co-star as teacher and principal at the high school. This is another movie where the plot is almost irrelevant. To appreciate the humor here you must have a taste for the bizarre and ridiculous, which is provided in ample quantities.

            Jesus Is Magic (2006) -starring Sarah Silverman. This is mostly a concert film, highlighting the ultra-unPC comedian, but also has some added sketches. If you are offended by…well, almost anything, you probably should not see this film. What I admire about Sarah Silverman is her willingness to completely disregard sacred cows –who else would make fun of Martin Luther King? She also has a knack for disguising her most offensive remarks with a pseudo-naivete that is almost believable.

            Doug Stanhope -No Refunds (2007). This is a pure concert film. If Sarah Silverman has competition as the most politically insensitive comedian working today, it would be Doug Stanhope, who seems to hold nothing whatsoever as the least bit sacred. His routines, which are full of drug references, are a challenge to all conventional standards in a way somewhat similar to the late George Carlin, though, to be honest, Carlin’s routines were getting a little stale during the last decade of his life. You don’t have to share Stanhope’s rather nihilistic spirit to appreciate his humor and the way he blasts through the hypocrisy of mainstream society.

            Four Rooms (1995) – this film is divided into four loosely connected stories, directed by Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Allison Anders and Alexander Rockwell. They take place in a hotel during one very strange evening. The connecting link is a bellboy, played with slapstick perfection by Tim Roth. This was not very well received critically. The episodes range from just o.k. to outright hilarious (the segment starring Antonio Banderas, which makes it worth seeing all by itself).

            Kabluey (2007) – directed by Scott Pendergrast, starring Lisa Kudrow and Scott Pendergrast. A recent addition to my list. This film may not have the best title, as it’s hard to remember, but it’s truly funny and offbeat in a low-key way. Scott Pendergrast directed and stars as a rather hapless loser who arrives at the doorstep of sister-in-law Lisa Kudrow and takes a job at a local company that involves dressing up in a bizarre blue suit and handing out leaflets in middle of a deserted road. If that doesn’t sound like it makes much sense, I don’t think it’s supposed to.

            __________________________________________________________

            The above is a rather small sampling of some offbeat comedy of the last ten or so years. I’ve left out some well known cult classics, such as The Big Lebowski and Office Space, not because I deem them unworthy of inclusion, but because they barely need mentioning.