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Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later (2017)
It's good to be back, even if it's for hour (or four)
Two summers back, Michael Showalter and David Wain did something unimaginable by resurrecting a cult classic into a prequel TV series that managed to capture the spirit of its successor. This time around the song remains the same. Every character comes back (except Bradley Cooper) to some extent and the duos writing chops thrive on this limited source of talent. Having a convoluted story does help fit everyone in organically which is why the Bush and Clinton cameos make sense (somehow?). Compared to the "First Day of Camp", the inclusion of new characters (Mark Feuerstein and Sarah Burns) at times bloated the four-hour run time as J.J.'s story line was given greater importance. Other than that it was great to see a universe full of characters still have a story to tell and enrich the lore of Camp Firewood. With a storybook ending, it's safe to say the world of Maine summer camps left at the right time. Walla-Walla-Hey!
Comrade Detective (2017)
Comrade Defective
On paper, the concept of a dubbed Romanian cop drama has serious potential and Channing Tatum and co. do expand on this well specifically with humor. At any chance, possible characters will reference the superiority of their government out of nowhere and demonize western values like the monopoly smugglers who "get high off the supply". The expansion of the concept ends there unfortunately as the by-the-numbers direction in editing and framing undercuts any transcending qualities about the source material. It's weird to say in a review to critique something was shot too competently but when other retro-genre parodies like Black Dynamite (2009) or Kung Fury (2015) can take jabs at tropes, they are able to deconstruct the flaws in dialogue and filmmaking of their respective era's while Comrade Detective only manages to ride the dubbing joke until the very end. If you are into bad 80's films there are some great visual cues (The excessive amounts of Ronald Reagan portraits) and the dubbing can be fun at points but that's as far as the entertainment goes.
How Not to Make a Movie (2013)
A Quintessential Documentary for Aspiring Filmmakers.
For many, the dreams of directing a feature film usually are never put to video. Chronicling the ambitious spirit of Jay Bauman and Mike Stoklasa in their first project together gives the retrospective interviews weight into the failure and acceptance of making their no-budget film Gorilla, Interrupted. With other "failed movie" documentaries, the viewer response to the film carries the majority of the film and the ironic counter-culture that makes Troll 2 a success. How Not to Make a Movie doesn't have an audience. Jay, Mike, and Rich contain the interviews to them and their closest friends because... nobody saw the movie. All their hard work and adversity produced a 68-minute waste of tape. They became like the other wanna-be filmmakers who unlike them didn't have potential. the tone of resentment in Stoklasa voice when illustrating Garrett Gilchrist's involvement when matched with the bittersweet optimism of their film-making benchmark inevitably spring boarding a decades-long friendship between the three exemplifies the struggles of life and our attempts to edit failures. Easily the best work RLM has ever done. Hopefully, they'll make doc's like this with their other feature length films.