FANGIRL 3 RE BOOT

RE:FANGIRL 3 BEST DARK COMEDIES There’s something about modern life that calls for dark humor. It seems appropriate that, in the face of adversities, the best form of defense is to poke fun at those very adversities through the time-honored American tradition of celebrating the macabre, the unsettling and the downright twisted. Here at “PopCrunch Towers” we decided to put together a list of the ten black comedies that made us feel the most genuinely uncomfortable; menacingly comic cinematic milestones that managed to be by turns — or at once — both funny and disturbing. So get your cringe muscles tensed, and we’ll begin! 10. Grosse Pointe Blank The 1997 George Armitage movie Grosse Pointe Blanke is something of a cult classic. This truly dark comedy portrays the existential crisis of a professional assassin returning to his hometown for a high school reunion. This movie has it all: guns, death, more death, and the non-ironic use of comedic one-liners. But it’s something much deeper that gives this film its unsettling edge. The believability of John Cusack’s hitman gives the lead character a personality that is easy to relate to. We find ourselves recoiling in discomfort at the recognizable mental traumas he faces regarding his morally ambiguous career choice. Like someone who works at McDonald’s. 9. After Hours The nightmarish plot of 1985′s After Hours — one of Martin Scorsese’s lesser lauded movies — is an allegorical masterpiece entirely devoted to the concept of rotten luck. Perhaps this is what makes us feel so uncomfortable watching it. The story begins and ends at work; but the between time documents one man (the worker) confronting an increasingly ill-fated chain of events — from having insufficient money to ride the subway, to the suicide of a young woman, to being pursued by a murderous mob. The seemingly cyclical, claustrophobic nature of the situations in which the protagonist (played by Griffin Dunne) finds himself is way less comfortable than any movie starring Cheech and Chong should ever be (they both appear as burglars), but just as funny. In these times, though, it’s hard to watch the film without musing on how the contemporary ATM card might have negated its entire premise. 8. Being John Malkovich Written and directed by the winning team of Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze, 1999′sBeing John Malkovich is a postmodern masterpiece of gallows humor. In true Kaufman style, this batty picture charts the tumultuous occurrences that follow the accidental discovery of a portal into the brain of actor John Malkovich. Whilst the comedy is subtle, the creepiness and melancholy atmosphere of the movie are not. Resplendent with unnerving puppets, Cameron Diaz at her absolute aesthetic worst, and a restaurant scene from hell, this movie represents Jonze and Kaufman at their very best; blending the incredulously comedic with the darkest of weirdnesses. 7. American Psycho Not exactly a movie to sit and watch with Junior, 2000’s American Psycho was a great movie inspired by a great book. In the movie, Christian Bale stars as Patrick Bateman, a late ’80s Manhattan yuppie with a penchant for luxury, and butchering hookers. The film is, at times, one of the most disturbingly humorous soirées into the mind of a high class killer ever produced; at other times, just completely twisted. A memorable scene involves Bateman being pushed over the edge upon realizing that an associate’s business card is better than his, leading to attempted murder in a restroom (an attack that is hilariously mistaken as something else by the victim…). “Oh my God, it even has a watermark.” Get the machete. 6. Falling Down Falling Down isn’t one of Michael Douglas’ better known films, but it’s certainly one of his best performances. The 1993 Joel Schumacher directed shoot-a-thon focuses on Douglas’ character, William “D-Fens” Foster, an ex-defense engineer who develops homicidal tendencies following a traffic jam. The movie is non-stop action, with Douglas exhibiting an increasingly dangerous, yet understandable, level of violent rage over everyday problems. The most notable — and coincidentally, the funniest — of these moments is the scene in which he fires an machine pistol into the ceiling of a fast food restaurant for refusing to serve him a breakfast meal three minutes after the menu changed to lunch. Disturbingly comedic and startlingly easy to identify with, Falling Down is the perfect ad for therapy. 5. About Schmidt What is it about a movie that addresses the inherent futility of life that makes it so depressing to watch? Oh yeah, the inherent futility of life. The darkly comic About Schmidt, released in 2002, concerns a widower, played by Jack Nicholson, whose relationship with his late wife had deteriorated before her death to the point of bitter hatred. Upon discovering evidence in the closet that his wife had been having an affair with a friend, Schmidt takes to the wheel of their oversized retirement plan — a Winnebago — and hits the road in order to try and dissuade his daughter from marrying an unsuitable fiancée. The movie is at times so dismal it’s hard to watch (but not in a bad way; it’s a good film), but great dialogue and expert performances from Nicholson and Kathy Bates make for a tongue-firmly-in-cheek satire of growing old and amounting to nothing. 4. Delicatessen Whilst 1991′s Delicatessen is certainly not considered a prequel to Amélie — director Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s “other” movie — it could well be described as its (very) messed-up older sister. The story revolves around a Parisian apartment building above a shady butcher’s shop in a post-apocalyptic France. The butcher lures waifs in with the promise of a vacancy, and then promptly dispatches them in order to sell their meat to the tenants above. This scheme is only foiled by the arrival of a plucky circus performer who becomes the butcher’s next target, and by a team of vegetarian troglodyte terrorists. What makes the film so creepy is its grimy, dirty aesthetic — one totally removed from the twee croissant-a-thon of Amélie. Macabre comic brilliance. 3. Addams Family Values Perhaps not the most disturbing of films on this list, Barry Sonnenfeld’s Addams Family Values, which came out in 1993, is nonetheless a movie that conveys a constant and unnerving feeling of uncertainty. Perhaps it’s simply the more Gothic nature of the secondAddams installment, the family’s impermeable relationship with death, or the darker and more serious use of the macabre juxtaposed with the normal American world around them. One way or another, it’s a black-as-night comedy with a true air of dis-ease. If you haven’t seen it since the fifth grade, take another look. The performances from Raúl Juliá, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd and Christina Ricci are tantamount to genius! 2. The War of the Roses To some, Michael Douglas may be a washed-up star nowadays, but he’s the only actor to have starred in two films in our top ten list, and he resolutely stole the show in both. The War of The Roses is a great, if underrated, comedy of the darkest kind. The tale begins when two lovers meet (the female protagonist played by the excellent Kathleen Turner), fall in love, get married, improve their careers and become wealthy. Then it all goes horribly wrong. Brilliantly narrated by their divorce lawyer (Danny DeVito), the movie chronicles how the couple’s squabbles eventually escalate into a messy, violent climax, as they inflict despicable levels of vengeance upon each another. If you’ve ever been through a break-up, you’ll squirm throughout this movie, laughing uncontrollably at the same time. Look out for a brief cameo from Dan “Homer Simpson” Castellaneta. 1. Fargo Ethan and Joel Coen are moviemakers renowned for their discreetly humorous dialogue and excellent use of atmosphere, and their 1996 offering Fargo is arguably the ultimate testament to this. The movie tells the “true” story of a kidnapping gone horribly wrong and several murders out in the sticks of Minnesota and North Dakota. Through all its exciting, gory detail, it still retains a sense of humor so delicate it remains ambiguous. Whether it’s the violent introduction of Steve Buscemi to a woodchipper, or the sing-song accent of the movie’s various regional extras — not to mention the superb Frances McDormand — the atmosphere remains truly thrilling, unbearably tense, and constantly amusing. -------------------------------------------------------------- ARE WE THERE YET ?????

In 2008 I was going through some major family issues, ones I am (even now) reluctant to publicly talk about. Often times I would feel I was alone in wondering if I would suffer the way I was watching those close to me suffer. I was lost, and while from the outside I didn’t let on, inside I was going through my own personal hell. That’s when Christopher Titus came along. Having grown up with the likes of Malcolm in The Middle I was fully aware of the new age of programs that tackled the issues of the dysfunctional family in a darkly comedic way without losing a sense of reality. A few years prior to ’08 I had seen one of Titus‘s specials on Comedy Central (I believe it was The 5th Annual End of The World Tour) and was immediately entertained. Through Google, I discovered he once had a show – one that, oddly enough, came right around the same time as Malcolm. The show, of course, was called Titus. I got my first glimpse of the show on YouTube in my college dorm room, but I didn’t know what I was about to get myself into. One DVD purchase later, I started watching the extremely critically acclaimed and highly-rated series. Immediately, the format felt almost too familiar (in a good way), a dysfunctional protagonist surrounded by an even more dysfunctional family who would spend much of the time addressing the audience directly, making sure we knew everything he’s going through internally at any given time. Of course, unlike Malcolm which could get away with murder by having a ten-year-old protagonist, Titus was well into adulthood and just trying to keep the pieces of his life together with elementary school-grade Elmer’s Glue. I was hooked immediately, while not being able to relate to anyone other than Titus at first (I was only a sophomore in college at the end of the day), I understood what Titus was saying about families and their capacity to be desperately fucked up. The show was television therapy for a kid that felt like he was drowning in his own depressing lack of self-confidence and stability. Whenever Titus had to deal with issues like looking back on a childhood that he wished had been spent with a different relative, or trying to explain the trials of his family to an outsider (in the show’s case that outsider is Titus’s girlfriend Erin played by Cynthia Watros), I was right there with him. There was a profound sense that Titus was able to put on the screen all the things I was feeling. A bit into the series, Titus’s mother Juanita (played first by Frances Fisher and later by Connie Stevens) was introduced by Titus as “a bi-polar, manic depressive, schizophrenic.” This confirmed that the show was tailor made for me. At the time I discovered the show, I was dealing with a relative who, while certainly no where near Mrs. Titus’s level of insanity, was causing me to go through my own double-edged troubles. Much of Titus’s attitude toward his mother in the series is built around the idea that in the back of his mind, he worries that he will one day end up just like her, and I understood that on a level I shouldn’t have been able to. The total role of genetics in mental disorder is still unclear, but Titus brought it into the blaring, naked light. In the last episode of the series, a story that Christopher Titus often used as the tail end of the stage show Norman Rockwell is Bleeding is shown where Titus’s mother has committed suicide and everyone in his life is trying to get him to deal with the loss. This is fortunately where Titus’s and my life part ways. But before they do, there is a scene where Titus picks up a newspaper with a headline that reads “Mental Illness: Genetic?” Regardless of the fact that this episode (and the second part that followed) served as the series finale (if you follow the series by production/script order and not airing order on the DVD), the scene allowed the series to come full circle, addressing the reason for why Titus is who he is, and why he acts the way he does. And in that moment he threw me, and I’m sure many others, on his own little Willy Wonka River Ride of hell and forced us all to tackle the issue of family head on. Eventually coming to one singular conclusion: you control your own fate, and no one else. Titus figures out that while he was raised by a bi-polar, manic depressive, schizophrenic, he chooses whether to be one or not. And through him, I was able to accept the same conclusion. It was a relief the like of which I has never felt before, and in one scene, was able to let go of all things that kept me up at night. Titus is a show that was clearly built as a mechanism of self-healing for stand-up comedian Christopher Titus, but what he may not have intended was for so many others to follow him on the journey through hell. And by walking through the fire with him, I came out a better, stronger person on the other side. Want to read more Channel Guide? Of course you do. To listen to the latest episode of Merrill’s TV Podcast, The Idiot Boxers with Kevin Carr, head over to Fat Guys at the Movies.         Interview: John Landis Talks ‘Burke and Hare’, Charles Bronson’s Glower, and Dodging a Silver Bullet with ‘The Wolfman’ With Burke and Hare, John Landis has marked his return to the world of feature filmmaking. He’s kept busy the last few years, albeit not in the way his fans would prefer him to be, but still preoccupied nonetheless. However, this dark romantic comedy brings him back to the genre he once mastered. Like many of the director’s acclaimed comedies, Burke and Hare is about the unlikeliest of leads. The murdering duo (played by Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis) could easily slip into being nothing but despicable, but that has always seemed to be a fun challenge for Landis. The Blues Brothers, the Animal House gang, and so on, are not particularly “good” people. In most films, they would be the villains. Landis, on the other hand, always sets out to make them the heroes. Here’s what the personable John Landis had to say about how this isn’t his return, following antiheroes, being in the intimidating presence of Charles Bronson, and why he didn’t directThe Wolfman: You’ve been pretty busy the last few years, so what’s it like being asked, “How does it feel to be back?” Well, I think you know the answer! [Laughs] By the way you asked the question, I think you know. It’s funny, everything I’ve done in the last seven or eight-years, they’ll say, “You haven’t been doing anything!” It’s depressing. A lot of people say to me, “The last thing you did was the documentary on Don Rickles!” Actually, I won an Emmy for that, and it was only two-years ago [Laughs]. Also, that’s not the last thing I did. Obviously, people are referring to theatrical films. [Laughs] I like how condescending you make that sound, “What have you been doing with yourself?” Oh, journalists are completely patronizing. [Laughs] So, you’re not a fan of the publicity process? Truthfully, you gotta realize I’ve been doing it for almost 40-years. You travel the world, sometimes it’s great fun, and sometimes you come across people who are genuinely passionate about movies. The majority of people in publicity are in the, you know, advertising business. There are people who are enthusiastic about film, but there are people who make their living off of exploiting film. It’s a part of the job, though. You accept it. Honestly, the good part of it is the traveling. While promoting a movie you may get to go to 15 countries, and that’s great. Also, there’s a herd mentality [with press]. Journalists follow the herd, and what is the sexiest story. Very few people come up with an angle on a movie. Reviews tend to review other reviews. At least 60% of the people I’ve talked to haven’t seen the film. Again, it’s a part of the job. I know what you mean. With Burke and Hare, I’d say it’s very similar to your earlier films, with how you follow uncommon heroes. What got you interested in that archetype? That’s interesting. I have to think about that. When I was visiting a friend of mine, Gurinder Chadha, she introduced me to Ealing Studios owner, Barnaby Thomspon. He bought the company as a real-estate deal, and then ended up making movies [Laughs]. He said to me, “Are you the filmmaker John Landis? Would you read a script?” I said, “Of course!” I was aware of Burke and Hare, since there’s been about 15 horror movies based on them. The best one isRobert Wise‘s first feature, The Body Snatcher. Although, it doesn’t have much to do with Burke and Hare. When you say “Burke and Hare,” most people think of grave robbing, but they never robbed a grave. Nonetheless, it’s an infamous tale of these low-life scums murdering people to sell their bodies. Doctors were, essentially, commissioning hits. It’s a grim story. What I found fascinating about the story is how it treats them as romantic heroes, which I thought was so perverse! Despite the movie’s silliness, it’s by far the most accurate out of all the movies. Going back to the antihero idea — this is a loose connection that I’m using just so I can bring up the film — you worked on Once Upon a Time in the West– [Laughs] I was a very, very low-level guy on that. I’m not sure if it had a direct influence. Those type of things are your job to figure out! It’s a stretch, but if you to compare me toSergio Leone, I’m there! [Laughs] The thing about Once Upon a Time in the West it’s really about the railroad and the opening of the West. I don’t know if I’d say that movie is about “antiheroes,” since Charles Bronson’s sole motivation is revenge for the murder of his brother. He’s out to kill Henry Fonda, who is no hero. Jason Robards is probably the most heroic guy in the show, and he’s a bit of a low-life. Was that an intense set? No, it was fun for me! I loved it. I lived in Almería at the time, so I would work on any movie I could. I worked on Italian, British, French, German, and even some Spanish movies. It was great fun. Sometimes, it was work and painful, but I was not an important creator on the film. I loved being on the set, and I certainly knew who Leone was. That’s where I met Dario Argento, when I was 19. Dario and Bernardo Bertolucci wrote Once Upon a Time in the West, and they were both film critics. [Laughs] You should start taking credit for the film. Just say you’d slip an idea or two to Leone every so often. Right, well, that’s not true [Laughs]. Again, everything about history is suspect. Everyone who writes adds something to the story and even the witnesses aren’t reliable. In the film business, everyone mythologizes their importance. You’ve seen Rashomon! You know how it works! On that movie, I was just a kid lucky to be working. I was happy to be there. I got to talk to Henry Fonda, so I thought I was an important guy [Laughs]. [Laughs] I’m guessing you didn’t chat much with Bronson? He was never known as being the friendliest of guys. Actually, I worked on about four or five films with Bronson. I met Michael Winner because I did stunts on Chato’s Land, which was where I met my future DP, Robert Paynter. He just passed away, but he shot nine or ten movies for me. Charles Bronson, yeah, he was not the friendliest guy. He would pretty much sit all by himself. On Chato’s Land, where he was the star at around 51 or 52-years-old, he played an Indian, so he wore a loincloth for the entire movie. I just remember thinking, “Man, he’s in good shape.” He wasn’t a very tall guy, but he was muscular and had a powerful presence. He would sit there, and just glower. Nobody would ever talk to him [Laughs]. [Laughs] That sounds intense. Well, you know, every actor is different. I don’t think he had a lot to say. [Laughs] Do you see yourself continuing in independent filmmaking? Is your next film,The Rivals, independently financed? The Rivals is completely independent. I don’t know, though. I have nothing against the studios. It’s a different time, and I’m not sure if I’d be hired by them. Briefly I was involved in replacing that guy for The Wolfman, but that was clearly a mistake. I’m glad that didn’t workout [Laughs]. [Laughs] You dodged a bullet there. Yeah… that was a disaster. They wouldn’t let me change the script, and I thought the script sucked [Laughs]. They had already built the sets, and they were close to filming. It was clearly going to be a train-wreck. In the film industry, it’s completely difficult to get funding for a movie. The only way you’re going to make something out of the mainstream — well, you could go to the studios and make a comic-book movie first, but I’m not interested in that. I’ll work when I can, and when I’m given the opportunity to. Burke and Hare is now available on VOD and opens in limited release on September 9th.