Elevate Difference

Reviews tagged black comedy

A Woman, A Gun, and a Noodle Shop

I walked out of the screening of A Woman, A Gun, and a Noodle Shop feeling vaguely dissatisfied. While the official selection of the 2010 Berlin Film Festival bills itself as a “black comedy thriller [which serves] as an expose of how intense desires can consume humanity,” it neither thrills nor tickles the funny bone.

The Last Days of Emma Blank

Emma Blank believes death is eminent. Surrounded by a sulky if compliant staff in her large home near the Dutch dunes, she shouts absurd orders in between bemoaning her fate. “Don’t worry,” she assures her impatient employees. “Before winter, I’ll be dead.” Emma’s character is frustratingly distempered. Seemingly with no idea what is good for her, she demands an eel for breakfast, then violently vomits while her staff stands around shaking their heads with annoyance. It’s clear no one in the house has any sympathy for her condition, whatever mysterious ailment it may be.

Peepli Live

The women of Peepli… well, there are no women in Peepli. Yes, there are daughters and mothers and wives, and to them Natha is purportedly “son and brother.” Natha is in dire straits; he has taken a loan from the bank and now cannot repay it.

Twin Peaks: The Definitive Gold Box Edition

Twin Peaks was the ultimate cult TV show: suspenseful, complex, and hilariously written with hidden layers that casual channel-flippers might not catch. Though it lasted only two seasons, David Lynch and Mark Frost's classic series is a brilliant piece of television, with dozens of intertwined subplots and a mystery death that goes a lot deeper than just murder.

Bam Bam and Celeste

Antithetical to the laugh-so-hard-you’ll-cry theory is comedian and activist Margaret Cho, who will have you crying, hard, before making you laugh like you’ve never laughed before. In her stand-up shows, she tells achingly raw stories about the torment of growing up “different” and does so in a way that makes her the only comedian who can respond to racial slurs with “fuck you” and pull it off like the most brilliant one-liner ever.

The Actress

The Actress is nothing more than another chauvinist movie that transforms the woman into the “foul temptress.” The “foul temptress” in this movie is an actress who moves in with three roommates: two men and a lesbian woman. The men have less than glamorous jobs, and one is a chronic masturbator. The lesbian roommate seems to be the most level-headed of the three, although she and her girlfriend have just broken up when the actress comes to stay. This "actress" never goes to an audition while staying with the roommates and never pays rent.
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