Cast: David Krumholtz, Martin Starr, Luxy Banner, Olivia Thrilby, Jocelyn DeBoer, Stephen Root, Macon Blair, Andrew Bujalski
Man-baby Lousy Carter struggles to complete his animated Nabokov adaptation, teaches a graduate seminar on The Great Gatsby, and sleeps with his best friend’s wife. He has six months to live.
Watching this film is kind of like reading a novella. It’s not quite 90 minutes well short of it but over an hour and is more of a character piece with a lead character who sets up most of the film entertainment as he seems to be a very morose and depressed guy, surrounded by characters who are supposed to be friends, family, and colleagues who don’t seem to really like him, but keep him around as they think they are better than him or to make themselves look better in some kind of light
Did I mention this is supposed to be a comedy, to tell the truth, if it wasn’t for the actors being so likable in their rules and this undercurrent of dead comedy throughout the film really wouldn’t work.
Though it has a charm to it, it is ultimately a tragedy of comedic proportions as the lead can’t seem to ever catch a break through his own stubbornness at times and he is dealt.
Even his ex-girlfriend doesn’t seem to be fond of them, nor the woman he is sleeping with even his student who seems to find a fascination in him as much as he finds a fascination in her there more to make herself feel better with his bad luck.
This is for the viewer who likes their comedy warped and sad but funny enough to keep from being down in the dumps and far from tragedy.
Veteran character actor David Krumholtz in the rare leading role totally sells his character and the film and is what makes this film so watchable. It tries to take a stab at the intellectual college crowd, though offers a bleak outlook that is more humorous than depressing, which is what makes the film stable and keeps the audience engaged.
The film even offers a joke at the end for the audience and on the audience.
Story By: Freddie Gibbs, Diego Ongaro and Xavi Molia
Cinematography: Daniel Vecchione
Editor: Benoit Sauvage
Cast: Freddie Gibbs, David Krumholtz, Bob Tarasuk, Jamie Neumann, Sharon Washington
A famous rapper, disillusioned with the music industry and the pressures of being a celebrity, leaves the city and his career behind to find himself in a small-town farming community.
The film is more of a slice of life. It’s an unhurried character study of its main character. Where are you wondering was the casting of Rapper Freddie Gibbs in this film random or if was it written around him more or less. The film feels kind of like a Bob Raefelson film of the 1970s that he would’ve made with Jack Nicholson. Natural and an experiment. where here you put an entertainer or rapper in another element with a story and see what happens and create a portrait while not being a documentary, but its own drama, or at least a study.
This film has one of the most truest lines in the movie. When the main character says “I got into the rap game to get away from the streets but it seems like the more popular I get the closer, it gets me back 10 times closer to the streets.”
This leads us to wonder why you get so caught up in music and rapper persona, and that’s where your fans are from, so that you wanna be cheered by them and represented even while your life might be getting better, but again being separate from the streets. you might want to stay kind of proving yourself to be still the same person.
Like most of us, we need a vacation from time to time. we need to get away, clear our heads, rest, and relax and I admire that the film shows him trying to create his next album but showing growth. In that maybe he doesn’t wanna do the same thing even though he still has it. but also how artistic pursuits can tamper with the proven formula and, when you have a deadline how easily it is to get distracted, and not feel necessarily inspired
How one might be so successful, but you also kind of long just for the normal things in life that others live and have to work for. While you have worked for it, is paying off, but you never really get it seem to enjoy necessarily the simple things. As the highlife at a certain point is seemingly more normal
I think Freddie Gibbs is cast perfectly. He definitely has the rapping skills and is an underrated rapper. Who I am a fan of even before this film. He’s the main reason I decided to watch the film and here he gives a great performance playing a character maybe not unlike himself. He shows a lot of emotional turmoil throughout not necessarily through dialogue, but body language, and emotionally. He rises to the challenge
This could’ve easily been a comedy with the premise of a rapper getting used to being in the wilderness to make their next album. Luckily it ends up becoming more of a character study. We learn things little by little about them, filling in the blanks as he goes about his days trying to Make out his various interactions with those around him in the woods.
Luckily, the film doesn’t bring up race though in one scene. It does kind of show maybe one character’s racism in a minor way though that doesn’t affect the rest of the film but is acknowledged that the film nor the characters are blind to that.
I guess it depends on, even though there’s a certain type of sound, song, and artistry that made you famous. also having no friends primarily only your fans. if you want to stay true to them only or if you wanna please the people almost like marriage, but also even as you grow as a person. You have to wonder, do you want to keep your music that represents yourself to a certain extent. So do you want to be that same person or over the years do you want to grow and show an evolution? you’re always gonna be true to yourself but you know you can’t stay the same forever and you change with the times. so to speak. I know everybody’s like “Oh I’m the same person. I’ve always been” though certain things in life happen and responsibilities take over.
The film also shows the business side of how sometimes you might get fed up and wanna leave it all behind, but you have way too many people depending on you, that you’re kind of forced back in. Even when maybe you wanna try something new.
It’s also interesting that as a rapper he’s the most financially successful character in the movie surrounded by these working-class Caucasians. Who love what they do up to now and he is the one of privilege. Even if he did work his way to where he is. he’s the one who seems to have all the benefits. yet he is the most tortured character emotionally throughout
The film also shows him not totally removing his toe from his surroundings and he still has a connection back to the country and his old life. Reminders of his old Life like a continuing beef, though he’s enjoying his life remoteness. In other words, fighting and coming back to a certain reality that is a fantasy to others. Kind of like a fantasy. He is living full of discovery, and a slower pace is a reality that is a fantasy to him. He feels maybe he has moved on or reached a different part of his life, or he’s making money off of his old life that he’s not necessarily in tune with anymore
Not to mention, he finds the people he’s around in his seclusion more real than the people in his more superstar life as they’re not making any money off of him when he’s in his seclusion, and he’s more in control of his life, whereas in his professional life he has certain obligations, and people making decisions for him, even though this is what he strives for
In the end, having an epiphany or realizing kind of house, shallow, his show business life is, More is
The ending pretty much spells it all out. Where he finally catches the skunk that has seemingly been hiding underneath his house. He traps it, and he tries to dispose of it in the woods by himself even though his friend Bob, the farmer tells him to call him immediately. Once he gets it he decides to dispatch the skunk Still in the cage and then when he turns around, he sees that the skunk has escaped which could have meaning for him as is seemingly the skunk chose to be trapped and acted that way, but in the end could’ve escaped whenever he wanted to and chose to leave when he was back Where he wanted to be
Directed By: Barry Sonnenfeld Written By: Paul Rudnick Characters Created By: Charles Addams Cinematography By: Donald Peterman Editor: Jim Miller & Arthur Schmidt Music By: Marc Shaiman
Cast: Raul Julia, Anjelica Huston, Christina Ricci, Christopher Lloyd, Joan Cusack, David Krumholtz, Carol Kane, Jimmy Workman, Christine Baranski, Peter MacNicol, Mercedes McNab, Sam McMurray, Dana Ivey, Nathan Lane, Harriet Sansom Harris, Charles Busch, Peter Graves, Cynthia Nixon, David Hyde Pierce, Monet Mazur
On any day of the week, you could expect a newborn baby to be nurtured and loved by his older sister. Except, of course, if it’s Wednesday. Pubert is the latest addition to the Addams family and, to prevent sibling rivalry escalating to fratricide, Wednesday and Pugsley are shipped off to summer camp and a nanny is hired. Debby Jellinsky is great with wrinkling baldies, which makes her the perfect nanny for Pubert and the unlikely wife of Uncle Fester. The question is…”Is she grave-digging or gold-digging?”
This is an underrated film. One of the rare sequels that excel over it’s original. Though here they seem to have more room to explore the world that the characters live in, but also the culture clashes.
The first film seemed to try to be more loyal to the fans of the television show. While trying to set a tone. Here the film is allowed to have its own personality, the actors also seemed more relaxed, laid back, and energetic. making the characters their own and not so much an imitation. Everyone seems to have found their groove.
Directed with flair and an intricate style that is assured.
The cast is superb. This I believe was the great Raul Julia’s final good role definitely better than M. Bison in the film STREET FIGHTER.
Christina Ricci deserved a best-supporting actress nomination for her work here. She steals the film. She makes Wednesday three dimensional, sadistic and quite witty.
This is also the first time I remember a Peter MacNicol performance and the prey time I remember seeing Christine Baranski as an actress.
The Addams family always struck me as strange of course the ultimate goths, by what were they? At least with THE MUNSTERS, you knew who or what they were supposed to be even though they came off as normal just happen to be monsters in appearance. With the Addams other than a cousin, it and thing and maybe lurch the butler, who appeared to be a zombie. The others appeared normal just macabre. I mean if you had I guess Fester was a mad scientist, Grandma was a witch Morticia dressed like a vampire, but could also be seen as a witch who just never cast spells. But Gomez was always a question mark. All you knew about him was that he was wealthy and energetic. More like a game show host mixed with a use car salesman and mortician.
because of films like these being so successful, it had the trend of films being made of old television shows and cartoons. This worked as it garnered a new generation of fans. While not being so far removed in years from the shows Initial popularity that there was still a sizable audience for it. Mistakes films like SPEED RACER made (while that film also had more of a cult following)
This film is a clever mixture of dark comedy, surrealism, slapstick, and satire. This is one of the films that made me realize why I truly embraced dark humor.
The only problem I have ever had with the first two Addams Family films is that the theme song for the updates was always tied into whatever pop star was popular at the time tieing in their hit songs style to fit the theme. Hence for this film whoop the Addams family there it is by tag team. Who’s hot the previous year was whoop there it is. This seemed to be common for tent pole franchise movies at the time. I still have frightening memories of the music video from hammer and the original movie theme the Addams family. Done in a more upbeat dancing style of music.
Michael Jackson was signed on to write and perform a song for the film’s soundtrack and to promote it with a video. Although he was able to finish the song, contractual difficulties coupled with the child molestation allegations made against Jackson resulted in the song being dropped from the soundtrack, and the video was never filmed. The song, “Is It Scary,” was later included on Jackson’s 1997 ‘Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix’ album and was also used in his short film Ghosts.
This film does everything right by bringing the Addams out more and exposing them to the public in daily life. Mixing with regular everyday citizens. Making it more of a culture clash comedy. That reaches it’s highlights at the Wednesday and Pugsley being forced to summer camp. (A genius idea) That ends with a classic comic set-piece celebrating thanksgiving.
Adding more than just makeup to the character, Morticia Addams is always lit separately from everyone else in a scene. Her lighting always consists of one beam of light across her eyes that gradually fades outward to add to her grim look.
The film reaches more comedy apex with the scenes involving Joan Cusack as a nanny out to seduce Fester. She is her regular brilliant comedic self as the homicidal gold digger.
When Fester announces his engagement, Morticia makes an overt reference to the ring worn by Debbie being the same one in which Fester’s grandmother was buried. Debbie slyly whips out a shovel, adding a literal component to her character’s “golddigger” status.
Carol Kane, who plays Grandmama, is almost a year younger than Anjelica Huston, who plays her daughter, Morticia Addams.
The reborn baby Pubert doesn’t work but needs to be there for Cusack’s character to enter the picture.
Some of the jokes are more of the moment and seem to make a stab more pop culture at the time. That brings a nostalgic feeling for those who remember the times. Though might be lost on others.
I can’t help but love this film and I really think it is a dark comedy the family can enjoy and have fun with. I remember seeing this film twice I. Theaters and even knowing all that would happen. This film still made me enjoy it as much as the first time.
Directed By: Gil Junger Written By: Karen McCullah & Kirsten Smith Cinematography: Mark Irwin Editor: O. Nicolas Brown
Cast: Heath Ledger, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Julia Stiles, Larisa Oleynik, Gabrille Union, David Krumholtz, Allison Janney, Andrew Keegan, Susan May Pratt, Daryl Mitchell, Larry Miller, David Leisure, Kyle Cease
Adapted from William Shakespeare’s play “The Taming of the Shrew,” A pretty, popular teenager can’t go out on a date until her ill-tempered older sister does.
Cut To The Chase 