Posts tagged funny
“Extract” Dumb, but Extremely Funny
Sep 9th
Dumb, but Extremely Funny
Hotshots” looks at a movie!
EXTRACT is the latest comedy written and directed by Mike Judge, who previously made the 1999 OFFICE SPACE and created the TV series “Beavis and Butt-Head” and “King of the Hill,” and so you know that you are in for a treatment of one poor schlub swimming against a sea of dumb guys and gals.
Rudyard Kipling wrote about keeping your head when all about you are losing theirs. Well, Jason Bateman does an excellent job as Joel, who is trying desperately to keep his head while everyone around him is losing theirs and some are even being stolen.
Joel owns a company that makes flavoring extracts, but his two biggest problems are trying to avoid talking to his annoying neighbor, expecially when Joel is trying to get home to his wife every evening after work before Suzie puts on her sweat pants and ties the knot.
That means that there will be no sex that night, and Joel laments to his buddy, Dean, that there hasn’t been any sex in months.
Dean is played by Ben Affleck, and he is a bartender where Joel used to work. Dean calls himself “an entrepreneur, spiritualist, healer,” but mostly he dispenses advice and pharmaceutical drugs.
When Joel tells Dean about his problem with Suzie and that a new hot-looking temp he hired seemed to be coming on to him, Dean advises, “You hire a gigolo to cheat on your wife.”
That way, you see, if Suzie takes the bait and cheats on Joel with the gigolo, then Joel can cheat on Suzie with the new temp and not have a guilty conscience.
To his credit, Joel resists the advice, but when Dean gives Joel a pill to calm him down, he gets his pills mixed up and gives Joel a horse tranquilizer instead. So, without thinking clearly, Joel takes Dean’s bad advice, hires a dumb kid that Dean knows to pretend to clean Joel’s swimming pool, and even agrees to pay Dean 10 percent.
Meanwhile, a freak and very funny accident at work causes an employee to lose a testicle, the hot-looking temp is much more than she appears to be, and Joel ends up with more problems at work than he has at home.
EXTRACT is full of the dumbest characters you will ever meet, but also extremely funny.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Goods: Live Hard Sell Hard” Rude, Crude, Extremely Lewd and Very, Very Funny
Aug 19th
Rude, Crude, Extremely Lewd and Very, Very Funny
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE GOODS: LIVE HARD, SELL HARD is one of those movies that get talked about more than seen, which is a shame, because it is well worth your time, trouble, and money.
It just won’t win any awards for quality or be on anyone’s list of the best films of 2009 or any year.
Of course, this means that it will do bang-up business when it comes out on DVD.
Jeremy Pivens stars as Don “The Goods” Ready, and so the title can refer to him just as easily as it can to the concept of the movie, which is selling used cars.
In fact, the first sale in the movie is a classic, and it takes place before the opening titles.
But as Ready says at the end of an inspiring speech on an airplane to convince the stewardess to let him smoke, “I’m Don Ready, and I’ve got the goods!”
Then you have to see what happens next to believe it.
Don and his team of two men and one woman are freelance used-car sellers, and they are called to Temecula, California, to help save the dealership of Ben Selleck, played by James Brolin.
They will be in charge over the Fourth of July weekend to save the business that has been in the family for 40 years, and one method they use is to hire some dancers from a local strip club to loosen up the customers.
One subplot is that Selleck’s daughter, Ivy, is engaged to the son of Selleck’s rival, played by Alan Thicke, who wants to buy Selleck’s dealership and give it to his son as a place where his son’s band can rehearse.
Another subplot is that one of Selleck’s salesmen might be Don’s son from a one-night stand he had in Temecula 23 years ago.
And a third subplot is a running reference to something bad that happened to Don in Albuquerque, which we don’t learn about until near the end of the movie.
So, Don makes a deal with Selleck’s rival that they will sell every car on the lot by the end of the weekend, and if they don’t–. Well, you have to see the movie to know what the bargain is.
THE GOODS: LIVE HARD, SELL HARD is rude, crude, extremely lewd, and very, very funny.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”