I have about eight million movies saved to my DVR that I've been meaning to watch. Last night there was nothing new on so I decided to go through my saved movies and watch one. But while I watched it I was planning to do my ab workout and cook chicken quesadillas, so it had to be something light, preferably funny so I could understand and appreciate what was going on even if I wasn't watching the screen.
Most of my stuff is dead serious. Mystic River. United 93. Not exactly happy-go-lucky entertainment.
So I see The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. That guy from the Pink Panther movies? Funny. The previews made it look funny. Sellers was a comedian, after all. And the intro was all Tom Waitsey with cute little animated figures, so I thought I'd be in for a fun little romp through a crazy little funny man's brain.
Have you seen that movie? Not funny. Good, quirky, really nifty in its structure. Geoffrey Rush is incredible. But it's not a comedy. Sure, it's got some comic relief. Rush's impression of Seller's hilarious Inspector Clouseau made me laugh out loud.
But it's not funny.
According to the film that man was kind of an asshole and sabotaged every relationship he ever had. So the film was a little depressing.
I had to pay more attention than I meant to.
Next time you make a movie about a comedian, HBO, warn me if you're going to make me sad. I was having trouble concentrating on broiling my chicken.
Not to state the obvious or anything, but it was called The Life and Death of Peter Sellers!
ReplyDeleteHave you seen it?
ReplyDeleteSPOILER ALERT
He doesn't actually die in the end.
Did you see the previews? All they showed were funny scenes. So I thought it would be a dark comedy. It wasn't.
It didn't do anything for me.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite false ad was for LAST KING OF SCOTLAND - they did a TV spot that made it look like a comedy, and had newspaper ads with Forest Whitaker laughing...
ReplyDeleteAs Amim, the dictator who ate people.
- Bill
Isn't it standard for comedians to lead hard, troubled lives, often of their own creation? They become funny to keep themselves from crying, right?
ReplyDeleteI didn't see The Last King of Scotland. I heard it was good. I didn't see any of those comedic ads, but why on earth would they do that?
ReplyDeleteAnd you guys are suggesting that because it's about a comedian and the title has the word "death" in it I should ignore the previews that say it's a comedy and assume it's sad?
But yeah, comedians do tend to be tragic. I'm waiting to see what Dane Cook's damage is.