Gone Girl Gone Wild: A Simple Favour Upends the ‘Missing Woman’ Thriller to Hilarious Effect
A Simple Favour is a self-aware, genuinely funny spin on the overheated airport novel genre.
Girls Trip (2017)
Girls Trip is the real deal, a comedy that’s at once hilarious and emotional, crass and authentic.
A Pigeon Sat On a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014)
Roy Andersson’s absurdist, absurdly-named opus A Pigeon Sat On a Branch Reflecting on Existence (the third film in a loose trilogy) is the polar opposite of the Paul-Feig-inspired mode of filmmaking dominating Hollywood comedies.
Ghostbusters (2016)
Everyone’s got an opinion on the new Ghostbusters whether or not they’ve seen it. Does it suck? Does it rock? …Short answer: yes. To both.
Your Biggest Fan: The Rise of Internet Fandom
The virulent reaction to the new Ghostbusters film demonstrates how the internet has empowered a force of good and evil: fandom.
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are Sisters – and aren’t as Funny as They Oughta Be
Paul Feig has a lot to answer for. Judd Apatow too, come to think of it. These two men, who cut their teeth on Freaks and Geeks, have cast the mould for modern American comedy: in Apatow’s case, extended tales about arrested adulthood, in Feig’s case, putting women front-and-centre of the kind of crude comedies…
Spy (2015)
Why shouldn’t James Bond be played by Melissa McCarthy? Walking out of Spy, the latest film from Paul Feig – of Bridesmaids and The Heat – I couldn’t think of a convincing reason why not. The film is an uneven but enjoyable comedy. After a flabby opening act – weighed down both by an insistence…
Freaks and Geeks
Freaks and Geeks is finally – finally! – available on Australian DVD today, so it seems as good a time as any to look back on the classic high school sitcom (a label that sits a little funny nowadays, but we’ll get to that). It’s customary when looking back on a show this old (if…
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