January 28

Time is short tonight, so I went searching for a comedy short to watch, and did I find one!

The Audition was directed by Martin Scorsese and featured Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro competing against one another for a lead role in the next Scorsese film.

Scorsese also stars, along with Brad Pitt. The four icons had come together to make this short as an advertisement for Studio City in Macau and City of Dreams in Manila.

This was a lot of fun with these superstars playing against their own reps in a very meta short. These talented actors are able to deliver the comedy as well as their typical dramatic roles.

Reportedly, the short/ad cost an estimated $70 million dollars.

January 26

I am not sure where I got this film for the Genre-ary. It must have been on one of the lists that I was searching through. This is a British black comedy called Withnail and I, which featured the feature film debut of Richard E. Grant. I typically like British humor. Unfortunately, I could not get into the film.

I had a very difficult time engaging in the narrative of Withnail and I.

According to IMDB, “Two sloppy actors spend a weekend holiday at an uncle’s country cottage.“

Maybe it is not fair of me, but I just was not into this movie. Did I give it enough of a chance? Maybe not, but I was just not grabbed by the film. Maybe I should give this a rewatch at some time in the future, but right now, I struggled with this movie.

January 25

Billy Crystal is a personal favorite of mine. He created a stand up comedy concert film that was based on a book that he wrote about his childhood and his family. It originally aired on HBO and I watched it on HBO Max.

It reminded me of the Charles Nelson Reilly film Life of Reilly, although that movie was darker than 700 Sundays. Both comedians talked about their childhood and their eccentric families with an honesty that you might not usually hear. They included the best of their lives, but also the tragedies that made them who they were.

Billy Crystal’s film was entitled 700 Sundays which was the count of Sundays that Billy had to spend with his father, Jack Crystal, before he died when Billy was 15.

Billy Crystal was remarkably funny, bringing out laughter between the tears in his stories. The set up for each tale brought the humor to the front, even with the deep loss that might also be present.

There were parts of the act that I recognized from previous stand up performances from Crystal. However, everything really fit together well. The stage featured a image of the old house that Crystal grew up in. This house became a important structure in the stories that he would tell.

The show was poignant, powerful and touching. Billy Crystal moved through everything with a flow that kept things moving and kept everyone laughing.

It was a wonderful show.

January 24

Charlie Chaplin has been a staple of several of my DailyViews and watches. I have truly enjoyed many of his shorts and movies, including most recently The Great Dictator during this year’s Genre-ary. So when I noticed that this biopic on Chaplin, starring Robert Downey Jr., was listed as a Comedy/Drama, I added it to the list for this month.

I had watched some of this film when I was younger, but I remember stopping it because I was not interested. I was too young to truly appreciate the artistry of the story.

According to IMDB, “An elderly Charlie Chaplin discusses his autobiography with his editor, recounting his amazing journey from his poverty-stricken childhood to world-wide success after the ingenious invention of the Little Tramp.”

This has a remarkable cast, led by RDJ, who would receive an Oscar nomination for his brilliant performance. Other cast members included Paul Rhys, Anthony Hopkins, Dan Aykroyd, Marisa Tomei, Moira Kelly, Kevin Kline, Penelope Ann Miller, Milla Jovovich, Kevin Dunn, James Woods, Diane Lane, Nancy Travis, David Duchovny, and Geraldine Chaplin.

The definitely strongest aspect of the film is Robert Downey Jr. He is amazing with his physical performance as well as his Chaplin replica. It was said that Charlie Chaplin’s actual daughter was in the film and she was impressed and unnerved by his creation of Chaplin.

The film ended with the Academy Award night where they gave him an honorary award and they showed the actual clips from the real movies with the real Charlie Chaplin. It was very powerful.

I thought this movie was really great, led by Robert Downey Jr. I would have liked maybe more about some of the controversies that were brought up during it. Still, I liked this a lot.

January 23

On a no school day because of the frigid temps, I got to watch the Genre-ary film early this morning. I pulled up HBO Max and watched a film starring Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Peña called War on Everybody.

Skarsgård and Peña are crooked cops that seem to flaunt authority at every turn. After returning from yet another suspension, Terry Monroe (Skarsgård) and Bob Bolaño (Peña) discover a heist that is about to be done. This led them to all kinds of trouble with two powerful and dangerous criminals (Theo James, Caleb Landry Jones).

During the investigation, Skarsgård is paired up with Tessa Thompson, and they are one of the best parts of the film. Thompson’s character, Jackie, fits right in with the damaged Terry Monroe. Some of their scenes together are fun and loose.

I think Skarsgård and Peña do a great job of creating these extremely unlikable characters and make them someone whom we want to root for. They are horrible people, but yet they are strangely charming and people you want to see do well. Anti-heroes have been around for years, but these two almost do not fit into that category. The skill of these tow actors is why the characters work so well.

The story is fairly skimpy. The two villains are cardboard cutouts. The action is, at best, okay. This film succeeds or fails on the strength of its lead actors. That is a good thing for this movie.

January 22

I do love Steve Martin. One of the first films of this Genre-ary was Steve Martin in The Jerk. That was really funny. Cheaper by the Dozen, not so much.

According to IMDB, “With his wife on a book tour, Tom Baker finds his life turned upside down when he agrees to care for his twelve children while simultaneously also coaching his new football team.”

Wow. These kids were brats. That might be harsh, but why not try some discipline? They can’t have all suddenly turned into evil little harpies because they moved away. Both Steve martin and Bonnie Hunt also showed they couldn’t have been good parents because good parents do not just become selfish ones.

There is really not much of a plot in this movie and these kids were acting like a nightmare. None of it made much sense to me, and the idea of this many kids is just insane.

There were a couple giggles during the movie, but the most laughs I had were from the end credit bloopers.

Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt led the cast which included Tom Welling, Hilary Duff, Alan Ruck, Richard Jenkins, Kevin G. Schmidt, Piper Perabo, Jacob Smith, Morgan York, Liliana Mumy, Forrest Landis, Blake Woodruff, Brent Kinsman, Shane Kinsman, Wayne Knight, and Ashton Kutcher. There was a cameo from Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa as well.

This felt more like a sitcom than a feature length film. I was also not sure about the message of the film… outside of the “Do you really want children?” one.

I did not hate the film, but there were so many things about it that made me wonder.

And puke jokes… those are not for me.

January 21

I needed a film short tonight and so I went to YouTube to search up something and I found just the thing. I have had Abbott & Costello, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and the Three Stooges so far in this Genre-ary, but a comedy month is not complete with a little bit of Laurel and Hardy.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are comedic geniuses in the early days of film. Their slapstick performances rivaled the very best of the genre, and their characters were even more developed than some of their contemporaries.

In this short, Laurel and Hardy are trying to get to sleep on a cold, wintry night, but Laurel’s hiccups kept Hardy awake and was causing the dog to bark. They knew that they were not supposed to have a dog, and so they were panicking when their dog-hating landlord came knocking on their door.

Their physical comedy was tremendous as they were trying to get back into the house with the dog. It is an impressive feat with how they worked together.

The short ended with a shocking event that caught me off guard. Something that might have been considered funnier at the time than it is today.

With the exception of the ending, this was a hoot. These old short films concentrated on the laughs and never fail to provide them.

January 20

Last year, I decided to do a special Saturday where I watched a bunch of Adam Sandler movies that I had not seen before. I am not a fan of Adam Sandler, but I wanted to give it a chance. Most of the films were bad, but there were a couple decent/passable ones. One of the films that I did not hate was Netflix’s Murder Mystery with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston. So with the Genre-ary in full swing, I decided that it would be a good time to watch the sequel, Murder Mystery 2.

This film is comparable to the first film. It had funny moments that I actually laughed out loud. Sandler and Aniston have great chemistry. I wish their chemistry transferred into a better movie. They could be wonderful together. As of right now, I would say that they were …ok.

According to IMDB, “Full-time detectives Nick and Audrey are struggling to get their private eye agency off the ground. They find themselves at the center of international abduction when their friend Maharaja is kidnapped at his own lavish wedding.”

Now, the story is quite silly with ridiculous situations. But after the last film, I came to expect it. This is a film that I can’t take serious but that was kind of stupid fun.

I smiled and laughed a lot during the film. It was similar to the first film and it was worth the time I spent to watch it. It was only 90 minutes and it flied quickly by. It had good pacing and several other characters that were fairly one dimensional, but fun.

This is not a good movie, but it is not bad either. It was okay.

January 18

The first film from silent film legend Charlie Chaplin that included sound was The Great Dictator. This movie was written, directed and starring Chaplin in a dual role. He played Dictator Adenoid Hynkel and a Jewish Barber.

At the beginning of the film, it lists that “Any Resemblance Between Hynkel the Dictator and the Jewish Barber is Purely Co-Incidental.”  This is really funny as the film is clearly mocking Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, without even trying to be subtle.

According to IMDB, “Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel’s regime.”

A biting satire, The Great Dictator condemns the ideas of the dictators as well as Fascism, antisemitism and hatred in the world. The final monologue given by Charlie Chaplin is very powerful and fits extremely well in our time as well as the early days of World War II.

Despite the dark tone of much of the movie, there is still some wonderful comedic moments and standout slapstick scenes. There is one where Hynkel is tapping a ball in the shape of the planet in the air around his office. It is a beautifully choreographed scene with plenty of metaphorical importance.

In his 1964 autobiography, Chaplin stated that he could not have done this movie had he known the true terrors and abominations that was being perpetrated by the Nazis during the Holocaust. There was references to concentration camps and ghettos in the film, but as of 1940, when the film came out, there was not the widespread comprehension of exactly what atrocities that had been going on.

This is a truly powerful film from one of the most iconic men of the time period. His work was inspirational to many future directors and creatives.

January 17

I had no idea that this was an Oscar winning film when I rented it on Fandango. The film was nominated for  Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It actually won Best Adapted Screenplay.

According to IMDB, “Two men reaching middle age with not much to show but disappointment embark on a week-long road trip through California’s wine country, just as one is about to take a trip down the aisle.“

Paul Giamatti led the cast in his role as Miles. He does a sensational job as the struggling, emotionally distraught writer. I think it is sad that Giamatti did not also receive an Oscar nom since there were so many others for the film. He holds the film together.

Thomas Hayden Church did deserve the nomination that he received as Best Supporting Actor. He managed to be both a cheating jerk and a caring best friend with his role of Jack. We knew that Jack was doing some terribly rotten things, but his feeling for Miles helped keep him from being cast aside.

Virginia Madsen was strong as Miles’ love interest Maya. They had a sweet relationship that was on a slow burn as Miles attempted to get past his depression and his baggage from his previous marriage. Miles and Maya had a wonderful relationship that was worth cheering for.

Giamatti and Hayden Church had great chemistry too. You believed that they were best friends despite the fact that they did not seem to be much like the other one.

Sideways was a surprising enjoyable movie that was a much bigger one than I ever knew about. I am glad that I was able to get a chance to see it.