Sage Advice

More Comedy Reviews I Wrote Awhile Ago And You Should Read Because You’re A Person Who Likes That Kind Of Stuff Or Maybe You’re Not Hey Man I’m Not Judging You Just Go On About Your Day Or Whatever

Anyway, here are my thoughts on Moshe Kasher’s latest special. Also, Lewis Black’s. You also just be reading The Comic’s Comic in general if you like comedy or reading. And you should like both of those things.

Have a good day/evening/existence!

-Matthew Fugere

P.S.

Did you read my pussy thing? Don’t worry, it’s not nearly as vulgar as you might think. 

Harry Cram, The Film Critic Who Thinks Movies Are Real, Reviews The Dark Knight Rises

As if The Avengers, a movie that proved gods and radioactive monsters are working together and filming their adventures to show off to the general public, wasn’t enough to scare me into realizing super-humans completely neglect property damage costs and insurance premiums, The Dark Knight Rises comes around only to further destroy my sense of security.

The movie starts out explaining what’s going on takes place eight years after what happened in 2008, when The Dark Knight happened. That means The Dark Knight Rises takes place four years from now. I don’t know how these filmmakers keep getting their hands on the world’s time-machines, but I think they’re really wasting that technology by capturing the antics of a billionaire who thinks giving back to his community means attacking strangers while dressed like a wild animal. I was already upset when the young man in Back to the Future used the precious resources of what has to be the only time-machine available just to hit on his mother, something he could have easily done without travelling through time.

Then again, I suppose it’s important that the events that will unfold in Gotham City get extensive coverage. After all, this is a city that has been under attack by various terrorists wielding dangerous superpowers since 1989, yet I still can’t find it on a map (this doesn’t come as too much of a surprise, however, as I’ve also never found Narnia, Mordor, or London on a map either despite all of these places being regular battlegrounds for wizards and other violent individuals).

Like most movies I go to, I was thrown out for using my cellphone to call various media outlets to warn them about the coming violence and destruction of a major city, so I didn’t get to see the last hour of the film. The Dark Knight Rises has me once again too afraid to go outside because of the possibility of random terrorism and people dressed like wild animals attacking me. Not since I was thrown out halfway through 1998’s Armageddon for asking the other moviegoers to start an orgy with me since the world was about to end have I come out of a film so terrified of the outside world. I’m going back to my underground bunker to cry and eat rations.

My Grade: D- because Christopher Nolan stole a time-machine 

-Harry Cram

Hunger Games Review

In the kind of forceful manner that only things tons of teenagers enjoy can project, there’s a new pop culture phenomenon that is ramming itself down the throat of the American social conscious. You can’t watch television or wander about the internet without someone or something telling you about The Hunger Games—a popular trilogy of novels turned blockbuster film—in the most hyperbolic of negative or positive terms. I haven’t read the novels. I also haven’t seen the movie. However, what kind of person would I be if I didn’t, in some degree, address something as relevant and massive as The Hunger Games. To make up for the fact that I have no idea what it really is, I’ve decided to review two things I am familiar with: Hunger, a 2008 film about the 1981 Irish hunger strikes, and the concepts of games.  

Hunger, starring Michael Fassbender (X-men: First Class, Inglorious Basterds, Prometheus) as Bobby Sands, is a highly visually stylized film. Scarce in dialogue, Hunger utilizes sharp imagery and cinematography to inform most the film’s characterization and plot progression. Perhaps one of the most stunning images the film shows comes early on as one of the guards of the prison, Officer Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham), stands outside of the prison smoking a cigarette, his knuckles bloodied. The contrast between the guard’s dark uniform and the setting’s bright, snowy background make the officer’s injured hand standout, telling a story of its own. Much of the beginning of the movie is focalized around how Officer Lohan sustained his injury, following those events all the way up until Lohan is assassinated by a member of the IRA. Most of this storytelling is presented with minimal dialogue yet a coherent story and intercommunication between characters are still so strongly represented.

Games are super fun. I play games all of the time. Sometimes I play board games. Those are good, but I really like video games more. Sometimes you play with other people. That can get very competitive, but I feel like I usually retain good spirits amongst my peers, never taking anything too seriously. Sometimes games are played by yourself. That’s fun too. I don’t think it’s as fun as with other people, but I still enjoy playing games by myself to pass the time and have fun.

Well, that about does it for my review of The Hunger Games. I hope I covered the film’s strengths and weaknesses without having actually ever experiencing it.  

-Matthew Fugere