683 Movies Like Parasite (2019) (Page 43)

For the entirety of Where Was I, Trevor Noah is comfortably in his pocket—speaking to an audience that's clearly familiar with his style and his views (if the respectful silences and occasional cheering are any indication) and branching off into sharing more serious facts between the jokes. And Noah's style is clearly refined, as he speaks clearly and sticks to a coherent structure at all times. But at a certain point his level of comfort here also leads to punchlines that are too easy or unsurprising, with too much focus placed on the kinds of voices and accents he can put on rather than the content of what he's saying. Noah remains a strong entertainer, but when you know how scathing he can get, this feels more like a warmup round.

Genre: Comedy, Documentary

Actor: Trevor Noah

Director: David Paul Meyer

Rating: PG-13

This film lays its foundation nicely: it’s got slapstick romance and an absurdly wholesome motivation, and juxtaposes it with a murder plot, telling you right away the kind of movie you’re going to get. Its mystery aspect is intertwined with comedy, and its comedy stems from an avoidance of direct confrontation, while being so casual with death. The combinations give the movie an exciting and comforting feeling, even with the awkward wrinkles and vaguely ominous pop of red and warm colors throughout. Still, it suffers from a lot of uneventful fluff and underwhelming payoffs. It's a good thing it's funny, then.

Genre: Comedy, Crime

Actor: Angela Finocchiaro, Antonino Bruschetta, Christian De Sica, Claudio Colica, Darko Peric, Dharma Mangia Woods, Fioretta Mari

Director: Giovanni Bognetti

With a lack of films on female sexuality, Thank You for Coming feels refreshing. Kanika Kapoor seeks out sexual fulfillment as much as she seeks an emotional connection, due to the fairytale promises given to many women from girlhood. She hopes for both, knowing that if she doesn’t go through it the right way, she’ll be looked down upon the same way her single mother was. The sex comedy is reminiscent of Mamma Mia, but instead of a child figuring out who of her potential three dads is hers through ABBA songs, it’s Kanika figuring out who from her past and present lovers gave her an orgasm, with excellent, though slightly disconnected tracks. The playful approach is fun and exciting, but this approach stops halfway through, and certain plot aspects and the choice of a male director detracts from the feminist, sex-positive message it wants to portray.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Anil Kapoor, Ayesha Raza Mishra, Bhumi Pednekar, Dolly Ahluwalia, Dolly Singh, Karan Kundra, Kusha Kapila, Natasha Rastogi, Pradhuman Singh, Saloni Daini, Shehnaaz Gill, Shibani Bedi, Sushant Divgikar

Director: Karan Boolani

If you love archeology and prehistory, you’ll love that this documentary is packed with mesmerizing footage of the infamous caves, as well as close-ups of the 130,000 year old skeletal remains that are in pristine condition. If you don’t, you might appreciate discoveries like how neanderthals held burials for their dead and things of that nature, but with a cold open that couldn’t pack any less heat if it tried, I wouldn’t blame you if you just dipped. This documentary is de-energizing and plodding, and that pace can make for a soothing portrayal of archeology at times, but other times it makes for a very run-of-the-mill broadcast.

Genre: Documentary

Actor: Caroline Colomei, Gabriel Andreu, Ibbi El Hani, Kareem Alexander, Patrick Stewart, Paula Parunov

Director: Ashley Gething

Rating: PG

The beginning instantly captures Kodama’s essence, and quickly sets lofty expectations with the regal intro sequence and the clean narration and reenactments. But it’s basically a feature length interview of the subject, who shares her screen time with the supporting cast to her action drama life (assistants, love interests, the usual), tackling the big scandals that brought trouble to Kodama. It’s a worthy watch, if only for the deep Nelma Kodama and laundering iceberg; however, it does get very long and redundant in feel, which may be necessary to paint the whole picture, but at some point it’s a bunch of branches that lead to other branches and the tree is big.

Genre: Crime, Documentary

Actor: Anzu Lawson, Nelma Kodama

Director: João Wainer

Rating: R

The set starts off rather harmless, as Koy puts over New York as a racially diverse island, and other wholesome sentiments marinated with cussing. He makes a genuine effort to directly connect with his audience, like he’s really lubing them up for something big, but nothing ever comes of it. He just corners his audience into laughing and tells them that laughing is good, and in fairness it kind of works. After a cult-y opening salvo, we get the rest of the Jo Koy staples: the cartoon voices, the patronizing, some questionable stuff. He settles nicely into age-related topics like chronic pains and back-in-the-day diatribes, where his timing and material really come together, and see the performance through to an admittedly abrupt end.

Genre: Comedy

Actor: Jo Koy

Director: Shannon Hartman

Rating: R

Genre: Comedy, Mystery, Romance, Thriller

Actor: Airi Matsui, Aju Makita, Amane Okayama, Aoi Miyazaki, Hatsunori Hasegawa, Hidekazu Mashima, Ken Mitsuishi, Ken Yasuda, Kento Nagayama, Michiko Tomura, Miyu Hayashida, Nahana, Rinko Kikuchi, Ryo Yoshizawa, Saki Takaoka, Takashi Okabe, Tomu Miyazaki, Yasuomi Sano, Yoh Yoshida, Yoshimasa Kondô, Yuki Izumisawa, Yunho

Director: Yusuke Taki

Rating: R, TV-MA

In terms of the quality of the material delivered in Son I Never Had, this special is really just okay at best. Heather McMahan has charisma and personality, but she has a tendency to run directly into the set-ups for her jokes, without the kind of build-up between segments that would make the whole hour flow better. And the comedy here is pretty standard, lightly raunchy fare that's often amusing but never really cuts deep into the various topics McMahan brings up. Where she's really successful, instead, is in the way she uses humor to contrast the lingering but gentle grief she feels over her father's passing. Son I Never Had, in its own roundabout way, becomes a sort of extended eulogy, emphasizing how our loved ones remain with us in our every memory.

Genre: Comedy

Actor: Heather McMahan

Director: Jen Zaborowski

Rating: R

Based on the novel by Women Talking author Miriam Toews, this adaptation of All My Puny Sorrows holds clear reverence for its source material but falls short of making a case for its existence as a film. Toews's prose—significant parts of which writer/director Michael McGowan has kept intact in the dialogue—may be appropriate for a book that allows full internal access to its narrator, but on film her words come across as overly articulate and artificial, even if they speak beautiful, harsh truths about grief. And without a defined visual identity or proper flow of ideas to back up its admittedly complex characters (played with authentic tenderness and force by Alison Pill, Sarah Gadon, and Mare Winningham), the film ends up stuck in its own darkness, unable to give a proper form to all its thoughts.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Alison Pill, Aly Mawji, Amybeth McNulty, Boyd Banks, Donal Logue, Elizabeth Saunders, Mare Winningham, Marin Almasi, Martin Roach, Michael Musi, Mimi Kuzyk, Morgan Bedard, Racine Bebamikawe, Sarah Gadon

Director: Michael McGowan

Rating: R

Genre: Comedy, Romance, TV Movie

Actor: Aadila Dosani, Alison Sweeney, Benjamin Ayres, Corina Bizim, Debbie Podowski, Dreyden Free, Eduardo Britto, John Prowse, Kehli O'Byrne, Kendra Anderson, Lynn Whyte, Matthew Kevin Anderson, Nevin Burkholder, Vivin Oommen, William Vaughan

Director: David Weaver

Rating: G

As one would expect from what's essentially a feature-length sports highlight reel, Bye Bye Barry compiles some stunning archival footage of Barry Sanders' best runs, given exactly the star treatment it deserves through a grand score and endless praise from the film's talking heads. But those who might want anything deeper—perhaps about Detroit's football culture, or the factors that may have led to Sanders' early retirement—get very little to chew on here. It's a film that still seems unsure of what it really wants to be, respecting Sanders' humility and private nature but filling the documentary with famous figures who end up forcing us to view the player as more legend than human.

Genre: Documentary

Actor: Barry Sanders, Bill Belichick, Calvin Johnson Jr., Chris Berman, Dan Patrick, Eminem, Emmitt Smith, Greg Gumbel, Jalen Rose, Jeff Daniels, Jemele Hill, Jim Gray, Kevin Glover, Pat O'Brien, Rodney Peete, Tim Allen

Director: Angela Torma, Micaela Powers, Paul Monusky