Lynn Shelton Embraces Awkwardness and Vulnerability in the Exceptional Comedy Humpday

For much of the history of American comedies, gay panic jokes were as standard of a source of comedy as sleeping on a banana peel. Just because they were ubiquitous doesn't mean they weren't harmful or unfunny. The rampant presence of gay panic jokes no doubt contributed to pop culture broader issue of normalizing the dehumanization and mockery of queer individuals, particularly between men. Throughout the history of cinema, though, plenty of great classic comedies have managed to generate yuks without restoring to a cheap trick like gay panic gags. Among such comedies was Humpday, Lynn Shelton's second directorial effort that, on paper, seems like it could have gone down a much more mocking path.

Paddleton Serves Up An Emotionally Affecting Portrait of Male Friendship

Michael (Mark Duplass) and Andy (Ray Romano) are an unexpected pair of buddies. They're apartment neighbors, with Andy living above Michael, and they've gradually become friends who bond over classic martial arts move, homemade pizzas and a game they created called Paddleton. Once the movie Paddleton begins, though, that friendship is threatened by Michael contacting a life-threatening disease that can't be cured. Death is unavoidable and now these two pals are looking to make the best of whatever time they have left, which will include a road trip to procure some extremely rare medicine for Michael.

Charlize Theron, Mackenzie Davis And Some Skillful Diablo Cody Writing Are The Champions of Tully

Director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody reunite once again, following their collaborations on Juno and Young Adult, for Tully, a new meditation on motherhood that also brings back the star of the duo's aforementioned project Young Adult, Charlize Theron. Theron gets the chance to play a wildly different character in Tully than the one she portrayed in Young Adult, with her character in Tully being Marlo, a woman who has two children and one more on the way and is feeling...unfulfilled. Life's not awful, she and her husband, Drew (Ron Livingston) get along fine, money's not even too much an issue, but there does seem to be an endless succession of mundane problems every day that she feels like she can never properly address.

Woah! Why Haven't More People Been Talking About The Intimate And Powerful Netflix Movie Blue Jay??

So far, Netflix's forays into the world feature films haven't been as successful as their TV shows and they've easily being overshadowed by Amazon's various box office and awards hits like Manchester By The Sea and Love & Friendship. But 2016 showed the company was capable of releasing some high-quality feature films such as The 13th (one of the year's best movies) and now Blue Jay helps solidify the idea that Netflix may just get a handle on the motion picture side of the entertainment equation yet. I have no clue why Blue Jay hasn't garnered more attention but make no mistake, it's quite the gem of a motion picture.

Tammy Review

This movie made more money in a single day than
The Immigrant has made in a month-and-a-half. We have failed
people. We have become monsters.

Let's get this out of the way; Tammy isn't a good movie. In fact, I'll even be bold and say it's a bad one. It's not abysmally, soul-crushingly awful like God's Not Dead or Transformers: Jesus Christ, That Movie Refused To End, but yes, Tammy is bad. And it's poor quality is only emphasized by the ambition that project contains. Ya see, the movie is really more of a drama than anything else, with numerous moments that are supposed to be devastating in terms of emotional impact. And considering Melissa McCarthy was one of three writers on the project, I gotta give her props for attempting to expand the range of movies she appears in.