the Amy Schumer thread

What I saw of This Is 40 seemed pretty decent but I was watching from a hotel hot tub so I was probably just vibing with the onscreen opulence.

nah, Freaks & Geeks is all-time, and Knocked Up/40yo Virgin def hold up (I would throw Forgetting Sarah Marshall in there too altho he was only tangentially involved)

― Οὖτις, Thursday, July 16, 2015 12:05 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm. I think the ending of 40-Year-Old Virgin is the hardest I've laughed in a movie theater. They're actually ending the movie with this! And they're committing to it! And Rudd's doing the scat-singing part!

i think comedies about rich assholes only work when they're also narcissists and misanthropists, i.e. Curb Your Enthusiasm, Arrested Development, Seinfeld (not that he was supposed to be especially rich in the sitcom, but i find his real life rich asshole character amusing).

(who just happen to be really similar to Apatow and his friends and family)

I think him casting his actual friends and family makes those last two films so much worse.

in Funny People the rich assholes ARE meant to be narcissists and misanthropes though, right? I liked Funny People, I've never seen any other Apatow films

Sandler's character in Funny People is clearly meant to be p unsympathetic/narcissistic/mysanthropic but it still doesn't work imo - way too long, with an unnecessary third act, and all sorts of sequences that are kind of gross (playing the Beatles, the shit w Apatow's children, etc.)

Would've preferred a film about the Yo Teach! subplot

the ending is weird, like the bit in the car where Sandler tells Rogen that he isn't funny and Rogen tells him he's glad if it means he's not like Sandler seems like the natural conclusion- like the message of the movie is basically that comedians are assholes- but then there's this odd tagged on scene where the two of them are reconciled.

the bit with Sandler playing the John Lennon song is kind of perfect, even if it probably wasn't intended to make his character look like a jerk

i saw it on tv while house-sitting and don't remember much...i assume that the rich assholes have a turn toward sincerity, selflessness, and redemption at some point?

xp

actually no

Best part about Sandler playing the Beatles song with session pros is that, for a week, my local theater was showing TWO films that James Gadson was in (the other being Soul Power...even though the Bill Withers segment was drumless).

soref otm about the tacked on ending, which feels v unearned

xp

Anthony Lane's review for The New Yorker pretty much confirms everything I feared this would be:

Are there any modern comedies that hold their nerve, and pursue their radical options to a bitter end? More than eighty years ago, the censor Joseph Breen was so appalled by the carnal candor of Barbara Stanwyck, in “Baby Face,” that he strong-armed Warner Bros. into cleaning up the ending and teaching the heroine a lesson, but Breen would not be needed these days. Though a movie like “Trainwreck” sounds filthy enough, it cleans itself up as it goes along—setting off at a rough lick, yet soon displaying signs of moral decency. As in previous Apatow films, the temptations of togetherness eventually drown the siren call of the boudoir. Amy, though informed by Steven, “You’re not nice,” is nice enough to befriend a homeless man outside her apartment; her philandering is not that of a genuine free spirit but of a conscience wrenched out of joint by an equally faithless father (Colin Quinn), who now, as if paying for his sins, suffers from multiple sclerosis and resides in an assisted-living facility. Amy has a sister (Brie Larson), who has a husband and a stepson, and, fiercely though Amy mocks their domestic harmony, they have much to teach her, the end result being a long shot, late in the proceedings, of all four of them gathered for a group hug. And that, as it were, is Amy’s final instruction: “Be happy for me, fuckers.” So much for the promise of the title. “Trainwreck” sticks to the rails.

i saw it yesterday and liked it a lot!!

i only just figured out that despite the title this is not a sequel to pineapple express

Lefsetz, he has Schumer opinions: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2015/07/18/trainwreck/

Just call me a constant warning to avoid the industrial hype complex. With standards so low it cannot be trusted. It’s a bandwagon of low-level taste that cannot be respected, you have to be brain-dead to pay attention to it.

So this was 35% hilarity and 65% tedium. Schumer has some great physical comedy and there are a bunch of funny asides, but whenever they try to be raunchy (toilet scene) it's just dull.

Worst was the 180 from eulogy to haranguing her sister out of nowhere.

most of the flaws people say are there are there, but i'm glad i came at it from a "hopefully it's better than This Is 40" angle than a "hopefully it's as good as her show" angle

any word on whether the inclusion of matthew broderick was a failed, intentionally random moment or was it a call-back to a deleted scene?

apatow was doing so well with the lebron plot and then just blew his meta wad all over the place

So much for the promise of the title. “Trainwreck” sticks to the rails.
― The New Gay Sadness (cryptosicko), Thursday, July 16, 2015 9:10 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well so does Schumer's comedy, ultimately.

She looks like a cross between an angel on a Victorian greeting card and a Campbell's Soup Kid

This description made me laugh.

― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Thursday, July 16, 2015 11:32 AM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think she looks like these plus cabbage patch kid! Last week my dad asked me why Amy Shumacher was so raunchy and was telling me how he tried to explain to my mom that despite looking like a "corn-fed Midwestern angel" she was really filthy.

actually that is just the way corn-fed midwestern angels are

we know that in the midwest, which is why we stay here

amy is raunchy bc instead of being a corn-fed midwestern angel she's a NY-born jew

or like my mom says - she's just the heir to joan rivers' shtick

x-post - *I* know that but he didn't.

http://i.imgur.com/qTGckgq.gif

Are there any modern comedies that hold their nerve, and pursue their radical options to a bitter end?

Bad Santa? Observe and Report?

I thought this was pretty harsh but at the same time convinced me to just skip getting a sitter for this movie: http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/chastened-amy-trainwreck-ant-man-review/

Bad Santa doesn't really

Observe and Report def in a class all its own, no wonder it tanked Jody Hill's movie career

Oh, come on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7YU2WI_HQE

I'd say the "happy" ending is earned by the kid, whose dad is in jail, being gifted a bloody stuffed animal while alcoholic Bad Santa recovers from 8 gun shots, then heading out in his "Shit Happens When You Party Naked" shirt and espousing his life lesson by kicking the bully in the nuts.

probably some of those Bobcat Goldthwait movies

she's just the heir to joan rivers' shtick

she's not even close to Joan's level

oh plz joan doesn't need hagiography she wasn't worlds better than amy

by the simplest yardstick, Joan made me laugh and could construct wickedly funny one liners and Amy does neither

Election stays with it through the end

Are there any modern comedies that hold their nerve, and pursue their radical options to a bitter end?

Citizen Ruth ended with the "pro-choice" and "pro-life" sides in deadlock. Ruth makes off with the bag of money, but does anyone imagine her actually buying a house and turning her life around?

As for Trainwreck, beneath the Apatow Raunch(TM) it's a gender-flipped take on the trope of a playboy converted to monogamy for the love of a patient and virtuous woman.

Election is the modern template to which all contemporary satires should aspire. Even the almost great Dear White People, the best example of cinematic satire in the last few years that I've seen, goes soft at the end.

Trainwreck was fine. Was it world-changing cinema? No but it was an amusing 2 hours. Lebron James was surprisingly really good.

btw if morbs is still on the fence:

Her father is second cousin to U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer.[9][10][11]

So, I watched her TV show finally because frankly i was getting sick of the weird fanboy/girl veneration the Aus media tonguebathed her with on her recent visit.

I dont get it, and didnt find it terribly funny. Is the racism supposed to be edgy?

she's done a joint appearance or two with Cousin Schmuck since the latest armed&crazy shot up a theater where Trainwreck was playing.

which season did you watch of her show? because the second and thir seasons are markedly better than the first and the racial stuff was tempered down a lot.

Yeah the first season. Compared to the youtube stuff I'd seen, it felt really awkward.

Are there any modern comedies that hold their nerve, and pursue their radical options to a bitter end?

Penn and Teller Get Killed!

Obvious child, but i wish it were a better movie

Or appropriate behavior which i just finished and enjoyed
Or tiny furniture which is probably the second best thing lena dunham has done

other than Girls, what else has she done?

buncha stuff of middle level import but i actually meant the "one man's trash" episode of Girls as opposed to the whole series.