IS THIS THING ON?**** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Day 8

IS THIS THING ON? is an absolutely delightful romantic dramedy based, rather improbably, on the life of Liverpudlian stand-up comedian John Bishop. Safely transposed to contemporary America, the movie stars Lego Batman Will Arnett and JAY KELLY’s Laura Dern as an unhappily married couple and parents of two sparky ten-year old boys.  As the movie opens they call time on their marriage: she stays in the suburban marital home with the dogs and the kids and he moves to an apartment in the city. Both are good people. In fact everyone in the movie is good people.  Yes they were unhappy and they split but there was no infidelity and there’s very little meanness.

What separation gives them is the chance to discover their identities as middle-aged people separate from each other and their identities as parents.  Who are they when considered on their own terms and in isolation?  She filled the void after retiring from sport with having a family but now goes back to coaching. He walks into a bar and is too cheap to pay the cover charge so ends up doing an open mic stand up slot. He discovers a whole new side of himself as well as a wonderfully welcoming and inclusive community of comedians.  And suddenly, both happy, the couple can be happy with each other.

This is a movie that could be sentimental and twee and obvious but it’s actually rather finely balanced and beautifully observed. Given that it was written by three men and based on an autobiography of a man, I was surprised by how well it captured the emotions of a middle-aged woman who sacrificed her career to raise a family. Bradley Cooper’s direction is assured and unshowy except for one bravura scene that takes us from an argument in an attic into a stand-up show.  The acting is universally good although perhaps the two leads were a little too old for their parts. Bradley Cooper has an hilarious and scene-stealing supporting role as a struggling actor. I also really loved how Cooper captured the energy and excitement and friendship of the stand-up scene.  He seems to have an authentic and love and appreciation of stand-up comedy and it shines through.

In a sense, this film is the lighter comedy counterpart to AFTER THE HUNT. It’s  a grown-up nuanced film about grown-ups with real marital issues but that shows how real marriages endure and even thrive on honesty and forbearance.  More of this please!

IS THIS THING ON? is rated R and has a running time of 124 minutes. It will be released in the USA on December 19th.

THE THREE STOOGES

THE THREE STOOGES.  I hated it. I hated it. I hated it. And then. Embarrassingly. I loved it! 

The turning point was the scene where Moe got cast in Jersey Shore and slapped The Situation silly.  Up until then the movie had mostly been a paint by numbers childish garish slapstick comedy.  Sure, I could see the technical skill in pulling off the pranks, but a trio of child-men dressing in drag and duelling with pissing babies is hardly my idea of a good time. And as for the plot, one can only assume that the Farrelly Brothers were being self-conscious in ripping off THE BLUES BROTHERS orphans-raise-money-to-save-the-kiddies idea.  I was embarrassed for everyone involved, and especially for Sofia Vergara, who plays the murderous slut who hires the Stooges to kill her rich husband.  Why would the star of America's highest rated prime-time network comedy be doing such a crude film?

But then it happened.  About half way through the film the brothers have a fight and Moe falls into a role on Jersey Shore.  Suddenly I was laughing out loud as the provincial dolt roundly taking the proverbial out of the fake-tanned, slow-witted reality starts. This was pure comedy gold.  And as soon as I opened myself up to it, I realised that I actually did appreciate just how good the three lead actors were - especially Chris Diamantopoulous as Moe.  Worst of all, I realised that I actually cared about what happened to guys.  I wanted to know if they'd make up with each other, and whether they'd save the orphanage, and whether the mean gold-digger would get her comeuppance.  And even at that point, the movie continued to surprise me with a couple of small plot twists at the end that undercut its day-glo saccharine feel.

Alls I can say is that despite my initial revulsion at crude slapstick comedy, I actually had a good time with THE THREE STOOGES, and in its final half hour, it becomes a much cleverer movie than one is led to believe by its initial men-in-drag-as-nuns type humour.  I'm not saying I'd watch it again - but I'm glad I watched it once!

THE THREE STOOGES was released earlier this year in Canada, India, the USA, Pakistan, Vietnam, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Croatia, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, France and Singapore. It was released earlier this month in Chile, Mexico, Spain and Peru and was released this week in the UK and Ireland.  It is released on August 31st in Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua; on September 7th in Ecuador; on September 14th in Venezuela, on September 20th in Bolivia; on September 28th in El Salvador, Guatemala and Panama; on October 12th in Germany, Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay and on December 7th in the Dominican Republic.

IGOR - bizarrely pitched

IGOR is a kids animated film that subverts the Frankenstein legend. Igor is a humble hunchback who dreams of breaking through the class ceiling and becoming a bona fide Evil Scientist. To do this, he creates a monster that he'll enter in the annual Evil Science Fair (!) But Igor has three problems. First, his monster isn't an mass-murderer but an aspiring actress, who just wants to sing songs of joy and hope. Second, he's not actually that evil. In fact, he's a sweetie and he's falling for his monster. Third, evil Dr Schadenfreude wants to steal Igor's monster and win the science fair himself.

The movie is quite bizarre. I'm not sure how young kids are going to react to a movie populated with patchwork beasties rather than cute bunnies. Or a movie where the humour is aimed far more at adults than kids - knowing pop-culture references rather than prat-falls. And IGOR isn't even going for the sort of adult humour that drives a movie like SHREK. Rather, it's going for the sort of arrested development geeks (myself included) that love watching movies like BRAIN DEAD or YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN or Tim Burton's animation. To that end, while I had a nice time watching IGOR I'm not sure if it really works as a kids flick. But if you like John Cusack and Steve Buscemi and loved the combination of ghouls and Harry Belafonte in BEETLEJUICE, this movie could be for you.

IGOR is currently on release in the USA, Israel, Taiwan, the Philippines, Greece and the UK. It opens in Iceland on October 31st. It opens in December in Russia, France and Portugal and in Argentina on January 1st.

THE BUCKET LIST - shameless schmaltz

THE BUCKET LIST is a horrible, lazy, manipulative movie and all the high-octane talent on the poster should be ashamed of having taken the pay check. Jack Nicholson plays a cantankerous old bastard just waiting to have his heart melted by Morgan Freeman's smug old wise man. It's like the script-writer simply spliced every other movie Nicholson and Freeman had starred in over the past decade. The two old men meet-cute in a cancer ward and indulge themselves in a few month's of global travel in their dying days. Apparently, being terminally ill with cancer is no bar to hiking in the Himalayas. Naturally, Nicholson learns the evils of his capitalist bastard ways and delivers one of those final act speeches that has us tearing up. That is, if you are able to supress your gag reflex.

THE BUCKET LIST is already on release in the US, Canada, Germany, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Israel, Colombia, Spain, Turkey, Venezuela, the Philippines, Argentina, Slovakia and the UK. It opens next week in Australia, Hong Kong, Portugal and Brazil. It opens the following week in France. THE BUCKET LIST opens in March in Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Japan, the Netherlands and Singapore. It opens in April in Finland, Norway and Sweden and opens in Russia on June 5th.