Films featuring
Michael McKean
Friday, June 29th, 2007
★★★★★
You can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater because then all you have is a wet, critically injured baby.
Reuniting virtually all of the personnel from Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration is a middling Hollywood comedy that trods familiar ground and never quite gets its comedic feet under it. Once again, as in A Mighty Wind, co-writer and director Christopher Guest’s affection for his characters undermines the potential for humor. The subject of Oscar hype in Hollywood might be ripe for scathing satire, but all this movie can manage is a softball thrown underhand.
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Posted by Paul McElligott in Movie Reviews | On Screen: Bob Balaban, Catherine O'Hara, Christopher Guest, Ed Begley Jr., Eugene Levy, Fred Willard, Harry Shearer, Jane Lynch, Mary McCormack, Michael Hitchcock, Michael McKean, Parker Posey | Comments Off
Monday, March 5th, 2007
★★★★★
There was abuse in my family, but it was mostly musical in nature.
The biggest problem with A Mighty Wind is that it gets so involved with telling its story that it occasionally forgets to be comedy. Make no mistake, it’s not a bad story, but it’s not a story of talentless but enthusiastic losers like Waiting For Guffman or of hilariously obsessive dog lovers like Best In Show. The faux-folk musicians in A Mighty Wind are actually quite good at what they do and they’re not clueless buffoons like Spinal Tap. The dramatic elements, especially the story of Mitch (Catherine O’Hara) and Mickey (Eugene Levy) take control and the outright comedic elements, especially those of Fred Willard, tend to hang in the air like a loud fart at a funeral.
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Posted by Paul McElligott in Movie Reviews | On Screen: Bob Balaban, Catherine O'Hara, Christopher Guest, Ed Begley Jr., Eugene Levy, Fred Willard, Harry Shearer, Jane Lynch, John Michael Higgins, Michael Hitchcock, Michael McKean, Parker Posey | Comments Off
Monday, March 5th, 2007
★★★★★
Counting those, you’ve already packed six kimonos… We’re in Philadelphia for 48 hours.
Best In Show is easily the funniest of the three Christopher Guest mockumetaries, if only because it keeps a bit of distance from its subjects and is better able to take its jabs at these uncommonly obsessive people. The movie doesn’t hold dog fanciers up for abject ridicule but it does expect them to be able to take a joke at their expense.
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Posted by Paul McElligott in Movie Reviews | On Screen: Catherine O'Hara, Christopher Guest, Ed Begley Jr., Eugene Levy, Fred Willard, Jane Lynch, Jennifer Coolidge, Jim Piddock, John Michael Higgins, Michael Hitchcock, Michael McKean, Parker Posey | Comments Off
Saturday, March 3rd, 2007
★★★★★
Well, I’m sure I’d feel much worse if I weren’t under such heavy sedation.
After doing for heavy metal what Blazing Saddles did for westerns, This Is Spinal Tap also managed to spark a minor cottage industry known as the Christopher Guest mockumentary. Now, Tap was hardly the first fake rock documentary, since The Rutles had been around for several years. Eric Idle’s spoof of Beatlemania, however, never got near the National Film Registry as did Rob Reiner’s affectionate yet lacerating take on head-bangers.
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Posted by Paul McElligott in Movie Reviews | On Screen: Billy Crystal, Bruno Kirby, Christopher Guest, Ed Begley Jr., Harry Shearer, Howard Hesseman, June Chadwick, Michael McKean, Paul Shaffer, Rob Reiner, Tony Hendra | Comments Off
Thursday, February 16th, 2006
★★★★★
I don’t get it.
The Aristocrats is literally a one-joke movie, but unlike a lot of lame comedies out there, this time it’s intentional. What we have here is a 90-minute dissection of what is allegedly the world’s filthiest joke. What’s most interesting about The Joke is that it’s not really funny. At least, the punchline is a total anti-climax compared to what has gone before.
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Posted by Paul McElligott in Movie Reviews | On Screen: Andy Dick, Andy Richter, Bill Maher, Billy Connolly, Bob Saget, Carrie Fisher, Chris Rock, Dave Thomas, David Brenner, David Steinberg, Dick Smothers, Don Rickles, Drew Carey, Eddie Izzard, Eric Idle, Fred Willard, Gary Owens, George Carlin, Gilbert Gottfried, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Howie Mandel, Jason Alexander, Jon Stewart, Kevin Nealon, Kevin Pollak, Larry Miller, Larry Storch, Lewis Black, Martin Mull, Matt Stone, Michael McKean, Paul Provenza, Paul Reiser, Penn Jillette, Phyllis Diller, Richard Jeni, Richard Lewis, Rita Rudner, Robin Williams, Sarah Silverman, Shelley Berman, Steven Wright, Tim Conway, Tom Smothers, Trey Parker, Whoopi Goldberg | 1 Comment »
