the Amy Schumer thread

All time classic in the sense that if it isn't already it'll soon be on cable all the time, and every time you come across it you'll be like eh OK?

I liked Bridesmaids and would watch that again before this, but I don't think I'd ever see either again. Just ... movies. With movie people and movie lighting saying movie things.

Trainwreck doesn't get better.

I laughed twice I think, by the end. It was too long and also felt like it had been cut by a third, which is not a good combination.

As I was more or less watching it, I perked up when some character mentioned that six weeks had passed. I assumed it was taking place over the course of a week! So she went six weeks without introducing her celebrity surgeon boyfriend to her sister? He went six weeks without realizing she was a borderline sociopath with substance abuse issues? And then out of nowhere they bring it back to her magazine story, which was ridiculous to begin with, but which I totally forgot about.

Also, what was up with the fascinating with gore? Close-up shots of knee surgery, her dad getting stitches over his eye, the doctor getting sprayed in the face with the basketball player's blood ... were they supposed to be funny? Gross? Subversions of gross-out humor by being gross but not funny?

I guess I liked all the (easy) Lebron stuff, though it was weird that no one recognized him wherever he went. Or that he was always in NYC. Or that a celebrity sports surgeon would make so much money that Lebron would be more of a financial peer than he is made out to be. I looked up "celebrity sports surgeon" and found a real life analog to Bill Hader, and this dude is worth $100 million: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Andrews_(physician)

And oh man, that final intervention with those sports figures and Matthew Broderick? WTF? They thought that was a good idea? I could barely endure.

I dunno. Apatow is weird and has a weird thing going on.

i don't think of TW as an apatow movie, it's just like watching an hourlong episode of her show with a plot weaving it together. also i think i am better at suspending disbelief at trivial inconsistencies than you are lol

two-hourlong*

It's not just trivial inconsistencies, though! Unlike her show, here the comedy is the inconsistency. Mostly it's like a pretty run of the mill brightly lit rom-com, but like I said before, these random bits are just awkwardly shoehorned in. It's like they had a boilerplate script, and a formulaic story, but then every once in a while it just goes on hold so they can riff on some stuff, with really erratic results. Vs. a movie like, I dunno, Anchorman, which is the opposite - all riffs and silly bits and gags, with a story that occasionally pops up, but not really. (I thought Bridesmaids sort of had the same problem; I still think it would have made a good drama, and probably would still be a solid drama, minus, say, long scenes of everyone shitting themselves.) But this ... maybe it was funny in the theaters, with a de facto laugh track? 'Cause it was a struggle at home. If I had to tell someone the funniest scene, I'd say ... what? I have no idea. It's just there. And I like Schumer.

Bridesmaids works for me although it's a bit long and the cop romance is p snoozeworthy - really the relationships between the women are the interesting parts. Wiig is a sympathetic failure type character and her redemption arc serves as a good framework for all the extended gags/setpieces.

That being said I don't like Schumer at all and Apatow should probably stop making movies (I have a bit more faith in Feig at this point), so I won't be seeing this.

yeah feig is pretty artless as a director but he's capable of delivering the goods on some level, like i would never tell someone 'you have to see the heat' or 'you have to see spy' but his comedies don't forget to be funny (how much they succeed is arguable i guess, but it's still their primary goal) and he's capable of depicting friendships between women in a way that doesn't feel like him patting himself on the back for passing the bechdel test. i like schumer and there were some dark places this was willing to go that i credit to the combination of her and apatow but this was still tedious and just ridiculously overlong. apatow's got this weird 'i have daughters so i understand women, i get this feminism thing now', he's not quite as far up his ass here as he was w/ this is 40 but still, dude is cooked. i was a fan of the dude for a long time, loved ben stiller show, love larry sanders, loved freaks and geeks obv, even loved undeclared, and was very happy when he finally actually had some success but man it has been a while since i've come away from one of his movies or even his interviews w/o thinking 'what a tedious schmuck'.

The Heat and Spy are fucking great. Spy had a couple of clearly improvised scenes that dragged, but overall it was hilarious, especially the interaction between McCarthy and Jason Statham. I even liked a lot of Tammy; that one was way darker than I expected it to be, McCarthy was willing to take that character into a really stupid and hostile space where if you met someone like that in real life you'd just be waiting for the racial slurs to start falling out of her mouth. But at the same time it felt class-authentic in a way movies almost always get wrong.

The Heat passed an hour and a half in a small town with a large single-screen that sold craft beer. Spy was very very funny and also structurally functioned almost perfectly as an action movie. Spectre should have been embarrassed out of being released in the same year.

I don't know anything about her or this movie, but I'm trying to work out why this poster bothers me SO MUCH:

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/dxnooKU42qpCY9ROJbLIow--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9NTEyO2g9ODEwO2lsPXBsYW5l/http://l.yimg.com/cd/resizer/2.0/FIT_TO_WIDTH-w512/74eae5adb32efd999d3130c1802f9ccf00dcc5c7.jpg

She's saying "wait a minute" right? Or "no no no, don't speak"? or "don't become a trainwreck like me"? And Hader is so photoshopped. And he's surprised by... her hair? And he's in a tux. And it's all about her, but you can't even see her face. And her left eye looks sleepy. And don't get me started on the font.

i think she's saying hold on a minute let me finish drinking this booze and he's like what have i gotten myself into this woman is really into drinking

Ok, thanks. I guess it would help to know whether she's wagging her finger or not.

mordy otm.

i saw trainwreck - most lols are in the first 30 mins, its def too long and idk lots felt off and like sum 4-quadrant pandering but mostly watchable

interesting that on this seasons first ep rachel feinstein came out to being in a 9yr relationship w judy gold (i think?)

& judy gold reteweeted this btw https://twitter.com/trishbendix/status/723549132216930305

& a day later rachel has a new cc special that is like ~50% jokes abt relationships w dudes &c. i feel like they were def largely old jokes

idk honestly w/e standup doesnt have to be real life i just think this was all kinda odd

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/books/amy-schumers-head-writer-on-comedy-and-her-new-book.html?_r=0

supposedly too dark to air on cc (but really? it's not that bad)

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/94dj5u/inside-amy-schumer-exclusive---the-law-firm-of-shrak---murphy

man that's labored, I couldn't even make it to the end

I thought this season was terrible, and I'm a fan. Felt like most of the skits were Amy playing herself and were about her being famous, which even played ironically or at her own expense got tired really fast.

Unexpectedly, Hilton Als on Schumer:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/the-limits-of-perversity-in-amy-schumers-standup

Huh. There are some serious, questionable parallels with his takedown of Beyonce in that review.

New Netflix special was forced at times but still brought the laughs.

I doubt I'll see her new movie, but I'm very ashamed to admit that I LOL'd pretty hard at the "whale cum" joke in the trailer.

her 15 minutes are up, right?

Let's hope so

she'll get revival sympathy as a "pioneering feminist icon" in 10-20 years

Counterpoint: maybe the number of roles available for female comedians at the peak of their popularity are no better or more numerous than for any other actresses. I somehow doubt Goldie Hawn hasn't worked in 15 years just cuz she didn't feel like it. Though who knows?

That said, I think she is pretty hit-or-miss even on her own terms. On her show for instance.

movie sucked

there was a weird PSA at the beginning of amy schumer and goldie hawn in front of a white backdrop thanking the audience for seeing the movie in a theater. it was really odd, out of place, kind of disturbing and unnecessarily desperate - if movie theaters disappear like tower records i'm leaving this planet. i don't remember the organization that the video was sponsored by

We saw the first ep of the new season of "Inside" and, with the exception of a few moments (the punchline of the Hallmark movie parody, maybe) I thought it was dire, like half-baked C-list end of the night "SNL" skits that all went on too long. Oof.

the very mention of her triggers a ton of right wing trolls and for that reason it's hard for me to talk shit but man I just have never found anything she's done to be funny. the one standup of hers I saw was pretty racist too. I really do not get what's made her such a big star all of the sudden.

i liked about 45% of her original series a lot, will give this a try.

Dud.

she's someone i see and i wonder why she thought she should be a performer. or why other people thought she should be. like leelee sobieski or patrick swayze's brother.