Amy Schumer already cemented her place on my year’s favorite entertainment list when she managed to loosely remake 12 Angry Men for the fourth episode of Inside Amy Schumer, but not satisfied with owning television, Schumer decides to revive the romantic comedy for 2015. Lazy writing has cursed the genre for much of the last few decades and studios have responded in kind by not pursuing that market with the gusto they used to.
By transforming nebulous emotions into relatable characters, directors Pete Docter and Ronaldo Del Carmen have created nothing short of a roadmap into the pre-pubescent mind. It’s not always a happy place, which is entirely the point. Often surreal and always delightful, ‘Inside Out’ is a rousing tribute to pure imagination.
The show begins with Josh (Jay Baruchel) awkwardly leaving the apartment of his now ex-girlfriend Maggie (Maya Erskine). As he walks away, heartbroken, suddenly it starts raining. But it’s only raining on him, nobody else. Dead birds fall from the sky and hit him, furthering his depressing state. The show only gets weirder from there. Within the …
As The Skeleton Twins delicately soars between comedy and tragedy, it smartly peels back layers of troubled backstory for the lives of its main characters: estranged twin siblings, separated for about a decade, who share suicidal tendencies. At the very moment Maggie Dean (Kristen Wiig), a dental hygienist from upstate New York, is about to swallow a handful of sleeping pills, she receives the message that her brother, Milo (Bill Hader), an unsuccessful actor in Hollywood, is in the hospital after slitting his wrists. Suicide and dysfunction runs in the Dean household. Their father killed himself when they were teenagers, and their mother (Joanna Gleason) is a pseudo-spiritual egotist with a thick layer of delusional and emotional baggage.
Sometimes you don’t want to hear how everything’s going to be alright. You just need someone to share the chaos with you. The Skeleton Twins is about reconnecting with that someone who makes the din between your ears just a little bit quieter. Superbly acted from a pitch-perfect script, this indie darling should make its presence known come award season. More importantly, it’s imbued with a quiet dignity that rises above patronizing head pats and simple solutions. It’s messy and real and sticks with you long after the laughs have subsided and the tears have stopped flowing.
Bill Hader has come a long way since his stint on Saturday Night Live, creating many popular characters and impersonations such as Stefon, Vincent Price and CNN’s Jack Cafferty. He is one of the highlights in such films as Adventureland, Knocked Up, Superbad and Pineapple Express, and so it is easy to see why author …
The Skeleton Twins Written by Craig Johnson and Mark Heyman Directed by Craig Johnson USA, 2014 With acclaimed runs as featured players on Saturday Night Live under their belts, Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig have now made a successful foray into drama. In Craig Johnson’s The Skeleton Twins, the renowned comedians play the titular siblings …
The amount of time it takes to exhaust the goodwill one has accrued towards an overqualified and bursting ensemble cast is roughly 70 minutes, if The To Do List is any indication. The film’s high concept and its performers, from Aubrey Plaza to Connie Britton to Alia Shawkat to Clark Gregg, are enough to engender some interest for a while, but eventually, The To Do List peters out, squandering away its likability on a strange, ballsy-for-being-irresponsible message and a muddled third act.
One of the most exciting, complex, and fully realized animated films of the last 20 years is Ratatouille, Pixar’s creative champion to date. The film presents its audience with a patently insane concept—a rat who wants to cook, and become a master of haute cuisine in Paris—and manages to ground every action, every reaction, and every consequence in reality. Not just the reality of the movie, but the reality of the world; when the kitchen staff at Gusteau’s is shown that the gawky young man who took their restaurant by storm is actually controlled, like a marionette, by this sharp, intelligent rat, all but one quit, because what other action would be appropriate?
Volkswagen has hired actor Bill Hader to help pitch their 2011 models of the Tiguan, Jetta, and Touareg. Car commercials usually suck, even when they use our favorite indie rock tunes, but these ads are actually pretty funny, with Hader letting loose with some bizarre humor.
Hot off the heels of a big critical success with Adventureland, Greg Mattola’s upcoming Simon Pegg and Nick Frost sci-fi comedy Paul has gotten a lot more interesting. Variety reports that a ridiculous quantity of talent has now been added to the project: Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman, Jane Lynch, Bill Hader, and the glorious Kristen …