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Tag: Comedy

Johnson Family Vacation (2004)

Comedy Rated PG-13

Light on laughs, driven by a creaky plot and peppered with a plinky score, this leaves you little to do but ponder which of the annoying family members should be booted out of the car first. They’re sent barreling through contrived sitcom situations, most of which make National Lampoon’s Vacation look like an observant comedy

Saved! (2004)

Comedy Rated PG-13

A statement of faith in the guise of sacrilege, Saved! takes place in a conservative Christian high school and follows a faithful teen named Mary (Jena Malone) who tells us she’s “been born again my whole life.” That’s fine with her, at least until she gets pregnant, her boyfriend tells her he may be gay

Johnny English (2003)

Comedy Rated PG

I admire British comedian Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) for reviving the nearly silent, slapstick-heavy style of early greats such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. I just wish he was good at it. Johnny English, a disposable spy spoof, has a few decent gags, but even those are hampered by laborious setups and a thudding

A Mighty Wind (2003)

Comedy Rated PG-13

Another reliably hilarious mock documentary from writer-director Christopher Guest (Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show), this time about a folk-music reunion concert. As the male half of a once-popular Sonny and Cher-type duo, Eugene Levy is both the movie’s funniest character and its most touching.

Along Came Polly (2004)

Comedy Rated PG-13

Ben Stiller’s brand of exasperated embarrassment is on display once again as he plays Reuben Feffer, a risk assessor for a huge insurance firm. His methods prove pointless when he meets Polly Prince, one of those movie free spirits that you usually want to lock in a closet. This time, as played by Jennifer Aniston,

American Dreamz (2006)

Comedy Rated PG-13

This pop-culture satire came under fire for being all over the place, but that’s like complaining that a trapeze artist shouldn’t be performing so far up in the air. The movie exhilarates precisely because it takes random, high-altitude risks. Among the contestants of a televised talent show is a small-town girl with big-city ambitions (Mandy

American Pie 2 (2001)

Comedy Rated R

Yes, the raunchy sex gags return as the four high-school buddies from the original film reunite after their first year at college, but thankfully so does the self-deprecating honesty that made American Pie an oddly touching teen flick. There’s plenty of titillation here, but also a surprisingly mature recognition that casual sex may not be

Big Bounce, The (2004)

Comedy Rated PG-13

How many times must Owen Wilson perform CPR on a comatose movie? Like I Spy, Shanghai Knights and other Wilson misfires, this Elmore Leonard adaptation about a con man in Hawaii occasionally flails about with signs of life, but mostly it’s dead on arrival. Wilson is as endearingly goofy as always, but for all his

Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999)

Comedy Rated R

Exhibit A in the curious career of Saturday Night Live veteran Rob Schneider. Schneider has no discernible comic talent, aside from giving the impression of being a 10-year-old stuck in a 40-year-old man’s body, yet here he’s given a plum part: that of a lowly aquarium cleaner who stumbles into a second career as a

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The (2005)

Comedy Rated PG

An angry letter to a faceless utility company in the guise of science-fiction, Douglas Adams’ 1979 novel channeled all his frustrations at the inanities and bureaucracies that govern society into a tongue-in-cheek guide to extraterrestrial life – which is revealed to be just as bogged down in inanity and bureaucracy as our own. This adaptation

Recent Reviews

Silkwood (1983)

Drama Rated R

“Streep is as loose as she’s ever been…”

Mother Mary (2026)

Drama Rated R

“A collage of religio-goth gestures…”

The Great Dictator (1940)

Comedy Rated G

“Charlie Chaplin was not messing around.”


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