Movies in the Comedy genre

A look at director Peter Segal’s filmography doesn’t build confidence for My Spy. Titles like Tommy Boy, Nutty Professor 2, and Grudge Match set expectations at an appropriately low level. My Spy is one of those action/comedies that fails ...

I once wrote that the only thing as necessary to a superhero movie as a nasty villain is a love interest. With My Super Ex-Girlfriend, director Ivan Reitman has shifted the focus away from the former and onto the latter. The twist here is that th...

When a movie tries to be intentionally campy, it follows a difficult road. Most films that attempt this fail because the artifice of the situation drains the humor from it. Genuine camp is the child of earnestness and ineptitude, and is only foun...

Tone is the most noteworthy aspect of Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini's The Nanny Diaries. In adapting the best-selling 2002 novel by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, the husband-and-wife team behind American Splendor have tried to keep ...

Napoleon Dynamite should be required therapy for anyone with a self-image problem. No matter how much of a loser a person believes himself to be, he couldn't possibly be in worse shape than the protagonist of Jared Hess' wickedly funny high school...

Guilty pleasure (n): a film that a critic shamefacedly admits to liking even though the prevailing opinion, as put forth by serious members of the profession, is that the movie is a piece of crap. Christmas Vacation is considered by many film ...

Despite his reputation as one of America's foremost "serious" filmmakers, Oliver Stone's name under the "director" caption does not guarantee a good movie. I learned that lesson while enduring the seemingly-endless tedium of The Doors, and was rem...

Nostalgia can be a wonderful thing, especially when a director tweaks it and plays with it. With Nebraska, Alexander Payne, working from a screenplay credited to Bob Nelson, targets a very specific slice of Americana that has often been romanticize...

Neighbors contains many of the qualities that make raunchy, profane comedies a popular commodity: sex, T&A, drugs, a barrage of four-letter words, and slapstick of the broadest kind. At first glance, one might be tempted to lump Neighbors into the ...

It’s the same sad story: a small movie becomes an unexpected success and, for purely financial reasons, a sequel is commissioned. The follow-up proves not only to be creatively bankrupt but a disappointment on all levels and thereby tarnishes t...