Movie blog

A year after Animals, Ricky Gervais comes back with his second stand up comedy tour: Politics.

Filmed during a limited run at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London, the show is based around Ricky’s fascination with the animal kingdom (including that curious species, the human being) and covers subjects as diverse as classifying bats, gay animals and the Great War poets. From the moment the curtain goes up, it becomes clear that David Attenborough has nothing to worry about as Gervais accompanies a short film on animal copulation with a unique and not entirely scientific narration! Fans will wonder if any subject is taboo as the comedy drifts from his interpretation of the Bible (including what really went on in the Garden of Eden) to parts of the animal kingdom that the BBC never dared to cover.

Borat trickster Sacha Baron Cohen returns to the big screen to offer yet another stinging dose of sociopolitical satire in this comedy that finds him assuming the persona of gay fashionmonger Bruno, the self-proclaimed “voice of Austrian youth TV.” Originally conceived as part of Cohen’s cult television series Da Ali G Show, the character of Bruno offered a cleverly costumed Cohen the opportunity to highlight the absurdities of the fashion industry by interviewing unsuspecting fashion icons and other haute couture hangers-on.

American businessman Jack Woods rents a cottage on the enchanted Emerald Isle which is occupied by a family of leprechauns. Leprechaun Seamus Muldoon’s son and son’s friends crash the fairies’ costume ball and Muldoon’s son falls in love with fairy Princess Jessica. Their love re-ignites a feud between the leprechauns and the fairies, which escalates into a war. The Grand Banshee warns of terrible consequences and Jack Woods is chosen to make peace. Woods interrupts his own romance with an Irish beauty to help, and becomes involved in a strange and wonderful magical adventure.

Nowhere chronicles a day (and night) in the lives of a group of 20 or more alienated Los Angeles teenagers in their personal lives of despair, alienation, failing relationships and more. Centering on one 18-year-old named Dark, an alienated UCLA film student; his bisexual African-American girlfriend Mel; her purple-haired, acid-tongued lesbian girlfriend Lucifer; Dark’s homosexual classmate Montgomery; and Montgomery’s poetess friend Alyssa. Other characters include Dark’s friend, a queer industrial rock star named Cowboy; his drug-addicted lover and band mate Bart; the local drug dealer Handjob and his live-in S&M girls Kris and Kozzy; the metal-mouthed, wise-cracking intellectual Dingbat; her older brother Duckey, the bulimic Egg; Alyssa’s self-destructive twin brother Shad and his girlfriend Lilith; Mel’s little brother Zero and his blond girlfriend Zoe, plus a Teen Idol so famous that no one needs to utter his name, a trio of Atari gang members, nattering Valley girls, scary drag queens, a pragmatic party, and a mysterious alien from outer space that only Dark sees.

Jordan White and Amy Blue, two troubled teens, pick up an adolescent drifter, Xavier Red. Together, the threesome embark on a sex and violence-filled journey through an America of psychos and quickiemarts.

A team from the intergalactic fast food chain Crumb’s Crunchy Delights descends on Earth, planning to make human flesh the newest taste sensation. After they wipe out the New Zealand town Kaihoro, the country’s Astro-Investigation and Defense Service is called in to deal with the problem. Things are complicated due to Giles, an aid worker who comes to Kaihoro the same day to collect change from the residents. He is captured by the aliens, and AIaDS stages a rescue mission that quickly becomes an all-out assault on the aliens’ headquarters.

It’s one of the scandals of our time that Joe Pasquale’s Return of the Love Monkey is avaliable everywhere, but this masterclass in honest intelligent comedy is on sale only at a solitary website and its author’s live gigs. The Pasquale comparison is relevant, as the squeaky unfunny man is one of Lee’s most fruitful targets, alongside Robbie Williams, Dan Brown and the 60,000 born-again Christians who waged a hate campaign against Lee for directing Jerry Springer the Opera. Charges of blasphemy were dropped, “because it’s not 1508″, but Lee’s life was turned upside down. With unflinching reflections on “a bit of a difficult year” allied to almost supernatural stagecraft, this set is high art in comparison with most stand-up. Especially Pasquale’s’.

Wayne Campbell is a heavy metal fanatic living in a suburban Chicago neighborhood. On a Friday Night, Wayne and his eccentric best friend, Garth Algar hosts “Wayne’s World”, a public cable network TV show in Wayne’s basement and is very popular. “Wayne’s World” catches the attention of handsome TV network executive Ben Oliver who wants “Wayne’s World” on his television network in downtown Chicago and sponsored by billionaire Noah Vandahoff, one of the largest owners in the arcade business. With “Wayne’s World” now on a Prime Time TV network, Wayne and Garth find themselves moving up big time and Wayne finds himself falling in love with Cassandra Wong, a Chinese-American lead singer of a heavy metal band. But Ben has a hidden agenda and plans on ruining their show and he bids to steal Cassandra from Wayne if Wayne and Garth do not make a success in making “Wayne’s World” #1 in the TV ratings. Wayne and Garth finds the show isn’t the same and Wayne plans to help Cassandra make it big time with her career.

A small-town kid hears about the wild nights of cruising the boulevard in Van Nuys, California. He drives out there to check it out, and gets involved with drag racers, topless dancers and bikers.

Seven years after a daring bank robbery involving an anti-tank gun used to blow open a vault, the robbery team temporarily puts aside their mutual suspicions to repeat the crime after they are unable to find the loot from the original heist, hidden behind a school chalkboard. The hardened artilleryman and his flippant, irresponsible young sidekick are the two wild cards in the deck of jokers.

Felix Ungar has just broken up with his wife. Despondant, he goes to kill himself but is saved by his friend Oscar Madison. With nowhere else to go, Felix is urged by Oscar to move in with him, at least for a while. The only problem is that Felix is neat, tidy, and neurotic, whereas Oscar is slovenly and casual.

Smooth cowboy Dan Kehoe arrives at a ranch run by an old widow and her four daughters-in-law. He’s been tipped off that the proceeds of a gold robbery are hidden on the ranch and only one of the women knows where. He plays them off against each other in his quest to discover the location.

It’s 1850 and newly-ordained orthodox rabbi Avram Belinski sets out on horseback from Philadelphia to San Francisco, knowing only that California’s “somewhere near New York.” Cowpoke bandit Tom Lillard hasn’t seen a rabbi before. But he knows when one needs a heap of help. And getting this tenderfoot to Frisco in one piece is going to cause a heap of trouble — with the law, Indians and a bunch of ruthless killers.