Comedies from the 2010s

Toc Toc
      2017 | Spain | Laughs: 3.0 (Chuckle) | imdb: 6.8
      wikipedia | who was involved?

By a scheduling mistake, three men and three women have appointments with the same psychiatrist at the same hour. All six suffer from some form of obsessive compulsion, such as washing one's hands or saying everything twice.

The device is a little crude and the plot often formulaic (with allotted segments to each of the patients), but, if you put out of your mind the question of whether using people's clinical conditions as a basis for comedy is even acceptable in this day and age, you'll probably find enough in the film to keep you fairly entertained for its very reasonable duration.

For me, the most enjoyable part was sin duda the older gentleman's Argentinian accent. (Last viewed: December 2018)

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Trainwreck
      2015 | USA | Laughs: 3.0 (Light-Hearted) | imdb: 6.2
      wikipedia | who was involved?

After dating an endless string of unchallenging men, a young woman breaks the pattern when she becomes involved with a star surgeon. The movie had many funny moments and probably made me laugh a couple of times. But I grew up in times when if a movie was longer than two hours there had to be a good reason for it—so for me 124 minutes seemed like too much time to tell this simple story. I'm also not fond of the approach of trying to draw the audience by shocking them in the opening scenes. With that said, this is a decent little movie if you're awake enough to last the distance and if you don't mind a strong focus below the belt. (Last viewed: April 2016)

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This Is the End
      2013 | USA | Laughs: 3.0 (Don't Bother) | imdb: 6.6
      wikipedia | who was involved?

A group of Hollywood celebrities barricade themselves in a house on the day of the Apocalypse. Apart from a few good lines from Jonah Hill, much of the humor in this film stems from the grotesque nature of the plot and situation. Usually, when a movie is bad that is because it fails at what it sets out to do, but that is far from the case here. In essence, it seems to me that the producers tried to make a "cult movie" (something that is so bad that it becomes good for a certain audience), and they achieved that goal to perfection. If you're into cult movies you will probably enjoy this. I'm not, hence the low rating. (Last viewed: October 2013)

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Seven Psychopaths
      2012 | U.K. | Laughs: 3.0 (Light-Hearted) | imdb: 7.2
      wikipedia | who was involved?

This movie may have a laugh lurking somewhere, but making you laugh is really not its main purpose. It's an edgy composition in the tradition of Adaptation, and it will please fans of artsy multi-layered scripts. For my taste, that form of storytelling is over-labored. Yet I found enough to enjoy in this film, which involves a Hollywood writer working on a script about psychopaths and running into more real-life material to inspire his story than he feels comfortable with. (Last viewed: October 2013)

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Superlopez (Superlópez)
      2018 | Spain | Laughs: 3.0 (Chuckle) | imdb: 5.3
      wikipedia | who was involved?

This Superman spoof was among the most viewed films of its season in Spain, so its low ratings are surprising. Superlopez is a superhuman from another galaxy who happens to have landed on the Earth's lamest country: Spain (the scriptwriter's words—actually cutre—not mine). In order to blend in to Spanish society, he tries to follow his foster father's advice by striving for mediocrity.

Although the movie didn't really make me laugh, I enjoyed watching it and found it very entertaining, excepting for the last half-hour, which was rather flat, as tends to happen with adventure comedies.
(Last viewed: June 2019)

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Long Shot
      2019 | USA | Laughs: 3.0 (Chuckle) | imdb: 6.8
      wikipedia | who was involved?

A progressive journalist needs to fit into the square world in order to write speeches for the Secretary of State, his former babysitter with whom a romance soon blossoms.

It felt like a long time since I'd watched a Seth Rogen movie so seeing him act again was a delight. There were some funny moments — none of them of the laugh-out-loud kind for me, but enough smiles and chuckles to keep me going.

More importantly, whoever made that movie didn't lose the plot and steered that boat safely to port. In its handling of politics in this partly disillusioned world, for me this movie will be a milestone: the first romantic comedy of the Trump-Sanders era.

(Last viewed: July 2019)

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When Pigs Have Wings (Le Cochon de Gaza)
      2011 | France | Laughs: 3.0 (Light-Hearted) | imdb: 7.0
      wikipedia | who was involved?

I was excited to watch a comedy based in Gaza, and pleased to recognize the main actor from the lovely The Band's Visit in the opening frames. However, the movie fails to deliver laughs. It is sometimes cute and always well-intentioned but suffers from a weak plot and mediocre acting. The story revolves around a Palestian community and Israeli settlers in the Gaza strip faced with the arrival of a pig, an animal abhorrent to both sides on religious grounds. For me, the best part for me was hearing the intermingling of Hebrew and Arabic—hardly worth the time investment. For a far more potent movie about Israel and Palestine, turn to the excellent Paradise Now (not a comedy). (Last viewed: December 2013)

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Dirty Grandpa
      2016 | USA | Laughs: 3.0 (Don't Bother) | imdb: 5.9
      wikipedia | who was involved?

Shortly after his wife's funeral, a man coerces his preppy grandson to act as wingman at a sleazy Florida resort. It's actually crasser than it sounds. If you're a fan of the growing subgenre of movies where Robert De Niro says the F word a hundred times, this one might be for you, and this website probably isn't.

Now that we got that out of the way, the real problem with this film is that it's the wrong message. What's the message? That it's okay for seventy-year-old men to lust after college girls. It wouldn't surprise me if I learned that the maker of Viagra had financed the film. Who else benefits from that message? The promoters of that decaying world. Relax, by "world" I didn't mean the United States as a whole, but the film industry, as a start.

And what's the right message? That ageing men who see their potency decline should be grateful to be freed from the shackles of their biology—that's a benediction. Now someone please go make that film. It actually has a chance of being funny, like anything that presents an uncomfortable truth. (Last viewed: August 2018)

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Easy A
      2010 | USA | Laughs: 3.0 (Broken Comedies) | imdb: 7.0
      wikipedia | who was involved?

To get noticed among her peers, a high-school girl let it be believed that she sleeps around. Strong characters, a truckload of good actors: this movie had lots of potential, but it fails to deliver in the one area this site is concerned with: laughter. I classified it among broken comedies because throughout the movie I wanted to laugh and couldn't, but if you started with low expectations on that side I suppose you could enjoy it as a light-hearted flick, as many of the characters (from the hero's dad to her arch-conservative nemesis) are delightful. (Last viewed: October 2012)

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A.C.O.D. (a.k.a Adult Children of Divorce)
      2013 | USA | Laughs: 3.0 (Don't Bother) | imdb: 5.7
      wikipedia | who was involved?

A man who has had to mediate the incendiary relationship between his divorced mother and father for most of his life discovers that as a nine-year-old he had been one of the subjects of a best-selling book about the Children of Divorce, whose author now proposes to write an equally intrusive follow-up. It is hard to say exactly why this movie doesn't work. The actors are competent, the plot makes more sense than most Hollywood comedies, yet toward the second half one becomes imbued with an overwhelming sense of "so what". Perhaps it is because in some sense the movie has the same whiny voice as these horrendous white boy bands of the 1990s—some of their main flag bearers, if I recall, were Hootie & the Blowfish, Dave Matthews Band, Counting Crows, Gin Blossoms and Barenaked Ladies. Just as it was hard to care when some rich kid frantically strummed his guitar while lamenting that his parents hadn't bought him new wheels for his skateboard, it's hard to care about an adult character's parents' divorce of twenty years back. There are worse problems in this world. (Last viewed: January 2014)

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Feo pero Sabroso
      2019 | Colombia | Laughs: 3.0 (Chuckle) | imdb: 4.3
      who was involved?

A woman from a well-heeled family is set to marry a man who, apart from his popular background, is not physically attractive according to the contemporary canons of beauty.

I was delighted to watch a comedy film from Colombia for the first time — a fact perhaps impulsed by the emphasis placed by the president at the time (Iván Duque) on the creative side of the economy. The accents are varied and terrific.

In some ways, the movie reminded me of a certain genre of French comedies from the 1960s. If you're a fan of Louis de Funès, you will probably enjoy this.

(Last viewed: October 2019)

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Last Vegas
      2013 | USA | Laughs: 3.0 (Light-Hearted) | imdb: 6.6
      wikipedia | who was involved?

When Billy announces that he is about to get married in Las Vegas, his three friends of sixty years meet him there to throw him a bachelor party. This is a harmless Hollywood film that lets itself watch on a day when you're not feeling demanding. It has plenty of star power (Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro, Kevin Kline, Michael Douglas), and the stars have no trouble carrying the movie. It has plenty of smiles, but if you're looking for laughs… look elsewhere. (Last viewed: February 2014)

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Bad Moms
      2016 | USA | Laughs: 3.0 (Chuckle) | imdb: 6.2
      wikipedia | who was involved?

Three women who've come to realize that the expectations placed on contemporary mothers are way too high decide to relax their standards. I'd read a number of bad reviews but found this comedy surprisingly decent. Given the number of comedies focused on the same tired mens' themes, it's a nice to hear about some women's issues for a change. The plot has nothing spectacular, but the cast did a great job with what they had. I was entertained.

Wanda Sykes' short appearance was a fun bonus.

(Last viewed: October 2019)

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Spanish Affair 2 (Ocho apellidos catalanes)
      2015 | Spain | Laughs: 3.0 (Light-Hearted) | imdb: 5.3
      wikipedia | who was involved?

If you want to laugh, this sequel to the brilliant Spanish Affair is not really worth watching. This time Rafa travels to Catalonia to prevent Amaia from marrying another man.

The movie has more minutes, more shots from helicopters, more extras, but I don't think it really made us laugh. It is cute though, so if you fancy an easy romantic flick, this may just be the thing for you. (Last viewed: February 2017)

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Jim Gaffigan: Quality Time
      2019 | USA | Laughs: 3.0 (Watch Once) | imdb: 7.6
      who was involved?

Although this show was entertaining to me, like all of Jim's sets that I've watched, I found it below his usual par. There were two reasons for that: (i) much of the early material seems to be recycled from previous shows, and (ii) the second half of the set features a long section with an endless series of jokes about horses. Jim himself acknowledged that this wasn't great material. Since he left it in, he must have had nothing better to fill the time, which bodes poorly for years to come —unless Jim returns to a more reasonable release rate: one tape a year really seems to be too much for him, or for any comedian for that matter.

All this being said, I was still more entertained than with much contemporary stand-up that comes my way, so please don't let this tepid review dissuade you.

(Last viewed: March 2020)

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