A Quickie With Lisa Marie: A Futile and Stupid Gesture (dir by David Wain)

Posted on May 1, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I was recently trying to remember if I had ever seen a truly great (as opposed to just good) film about a comedian. The closest I could come up with was the original Fame but, while that film does feature Barry Miller as an aspiring comedian, he’s only a part of the ensemble. He’s not the sole focus of the film and his most memorable moment is when he get taunted by Richard Belzer and then bombs on stage.

Why do movies about comedians often seem to fail? Some of that is because they star people who aren’t necessarily believable as comedians (The Comedian) and they try to cover up that fact by including way too many shots of people laughing uproariously in response (Man of the Year, the HBO television series I’m Dying Up Here). Another major problem is that comedians themselves tend to be a bit difficult to take when they’re not on stage. Having to spend 90 to 120 minutes hanging out with a group of emotionally closed-off people who won’t stop trying to be funny can be exhausting. It’s really not as surprise that many movies (Lenny, Funny People, Joker) about comedians tend to portray them as being seriously damaged people. Punchline is an interesting example of a film that managed to feature not only a miscast and not particularly funny star (Sally Field, in this case) but also a group of comedians (led by Tom Hanks) who come across as being a real chore to hang out with.

All of that brings us to 2018’s A Futile And Stupid Gesture, an exhausting biopic about National Lampoon-founder Doug Kenney. The film establishes itself from the start by featuring a gray-haired Martin Mull as who Doug Kenney would have grown up to be if he hadn’t died mysteriously at the age of 33. While Mull narrates, Will Forte (who was so brilliant in Nebraska) plays the youngish Kenney. Meanwhile, a host of 21st century comedy all-stars play the comedy all-stars of the 1970s, with only Joel McHale’s Chevy Chase and Nelson Franklin’s PJ O’Rourke making much of an impressions. Our narrator mentions that most of the actors don’t look like the characters that they’re playing because this is the type of movie where the fourth wall is repeatedly broken. A lot of people credit Adam McKay with making it trendy to break the fourth wall. In reality, it was Michael Winterbottom with 24-Hour Party People. Either way, it’s one of those things that’s been done so many times that it no longer feels the least bit subversive. A Futile and Stupid Gesture is so extremely stylized (here comes another fantasy sequence!) that it actually feels more desperate than clever.

A Futile and Stupid Gesture is a tiring film, largely because everyone in the movie is such a quip machine that you get sick of listening to them after the first few minutes. The film makes the argument that Kenney’s refusal to stop making jokes was because of the trauma of losing his brother when he was younger but that still doesn’t make the film’s version of Kenney any less exhausting as a character. To be honest, though, just about every character in the film is exhausting. So many famous lines are uttered that I was ready to throw a shoe at the television by the time Michael O’Donoghue (Thomas Lennon) said, “I don’t write for felt.” Between this film and Saturday Night, I’ll be very happy to never see another movie featuring someone playing Michael O’Donoghue.

It’s a shame it’s not a better film because one does get the feeling that the film was coming from a place of love. Director David Wain has directed some funny movies and he was one of the people behind Children’s Hospital, one of my favorite shows. I wanted to like this film and I feel a little bit guilty that I didn’t. But, in the end, it’s hard not to feel that maybe a better tribute to Doug Kenney would have been to have filmed Bored of the Rings.

Film Review: You People (dir by Kenya Barris)

Posted on January 28, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ezra Cohen (Jonah Hill) and Amirah Mohammed (Lauren London) have been dating for six months. Ezra is a Jewish atheist who works at a brokerage firm but who says his lifelong dream has been to be a podcaster. Lauren is Black and a devout Muslim. A graduate of Howard University, she is pursuing a career as a designer. Despite coming from very different backgrounds, Ezra and Amirah are deeply in love and want to get married. However, becoming engaged also means …. MEETING THE PARENTS!

Shelley and Arnold Cohen (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus and David Duchovny) are self-styled progressives who immediately embarrass Ezra by going out of their way to trying to show how liberal and non-racist they are. Shelley, in particular, goes out of her way to bond with Amirah but it’s immediately obvious that Shelley views Amirah as being more someone to show off than as an actual human being. Meanwhile, Akbar Mohammed and Fatima Mohammed (played by Eddie Murphy and Nia Long) are members of the Nation of Islam who admire Louis Farrakhan and who claim that the Jews were behind the slave trade.

Just from that plot description, you can see a huge part of the problem with the new film, You People. Whereas Shelley’s problem is that she’s too quick to brag about how much she loves the idea of having a black daughter-in-law, Akbar’s problem is that he’s an anti-Semite. His main objections to Ezra are that 1) Ezra isn’t black and 2) Ezra’s Jewish. While Shelley takes Amirah shopping, Akbar tries to get Ezra killed by tricking him into wearing “the wrong colors” to a barbershop. While Shelley shows off Amirah to all of her liberal friends, Akbar shoves Ezra onto a basketball court. While Shelley is awkwardly trying to prove that she’s an ally, Akbar is inviting himself to Ezra’s wild Las Vegas bachelor party. (Akbar is disturbed to discover that Ezra has a “coke guy.” If this film had been made ten years ago, Ezra would have had a weed guy and it would have been easier to buy the film’s contention that Akbar is being unreasonable.) Shelley is certainly obnoxious and she fully deserves to get called out for her behavior. But Akbar is an anti-Semite who peddles the type of conspiracy theories that have been at the center of the alarming rise in recent hate crimes. Whereas Shelley is clueless, Akbar is actually malicious. And while that’s a story that one certainly could try to tell, it also makes it a bit difficult to buy the film’s fanciful ending. The movie ultimately can’t decide if it wants to be a fearless satire of race relations or a feel-good romcom. The tone of the film switches from scene to scene and Kenya Barris’s direction is so inconsistent that he makes Judd Apatow look like a disciplined filmmaker by comparison.

The cast is full of talent but the characters are largely one-dimensional. Jonah Hill is undoubtedly a good actor but he’s also nearly 40 years old and, with his full beard, he looks about ten years older, which makes it a bit hard to believe that he would be that concerned with getting the approval of his future in-laws. At first, a role of Akbar would seem ideal for Eddie Murphy but, with the exception of a scene where Akbar quizzes Ezra on his favorite Jay-Z song in an attempt to trick Ezra into saying the “n-word,” Murphy doesn’t really get to do much other than stand around with a pained expression on his face. Probably the most interesting performance in the film comes from Mike Epps, who plays Akbar’s brother and who is one of the few characters willing to call everyone out on their hypocrisy. But, unfortunately, Epps is only in a handful of scenes and the film uses him as more of a dramatic device than a fully rounded character.

As I watched You People, I couldn’t help but think about another film about an interracial wedding, Rachel Getting Married. That film provided a believable and multi-layered look at two different cultures coming together. You People, however, can’t quite make up its mind what it believes or what it wants to say and, unfortunately, what it does say is often said with a surprising lack of self-awareness. At times, it’s so proud of itself that it feels like it almost could have been written by Shelley Cohen.

You People is streaming on Netflix.

SXSW 2020 Short Film Review: Basic (dir by Chelsea Devantez)

Posted on May 1, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the introduction that plays before the start of Basic, director and actress Chelsea Devantez describes her film as being a “very, very, very short film” and indeed it is. It’s only 4 minutes long, which means that this is about to a very, very, very short review.

Anyway, Basic is a film about “the insecure lil’ ho in all of us.” It open with Gloria (Chelsea Devantez) looking at Kailynn’s (Georgia Mischak) Instagram and talking about how much she hates her. Why does Gloria hate Kailynn? Could it be because Kailynn appears to have a perfect and glamorous life? Or could it be because of the fact that Nick (Nelson Franklin) is in several of the pictures with her. “Oh, look,” Gloria says, “we go shopping together.”

I’m probably not doing justice to the film but it’s a laugh-out loud hilarious comedy and it’s got a clever little twist at the end and dammit, what else can you really ask from a four-minute comedy? Many of the laughs comes from Gloria’s snarky comments about Kailynn’s life but even more of the laughs come from the fact that it’s obvious that Gloria would love to be Kailynn. Finally, this film gives us a lot of Nelson Franklin, who was hilarious on Veep and who deserves to be in many more films and shows. Nelson Franklin is one of those actors who can make just about any line laugh out loud hilarious.

It’s a short film. It’s 4 minutes. Who doesn’t have 4 minutes to spare? Seriously, you’re going to tell me you don’t have 4 minutes? Shut up, you’ve got 4 minutes. Watch it on Prime while you can.