1967's film adaption of the Broadway hit BAREFOOT IN THE PARK evokes another time in American comedy that now seems like ancient history in its style and themes. Robert Redford reprises his stage role as young, conservative lawyer Paul Bratter. As the film opens, he and his outgoing, brash new wife Corie (Jane Fonda) are taking a post-wedding Central Park horse carriage ride to the Plaza for a week long honeymoon. Sequestered in their suite for days, the maids talk about the hotel record for never leaving the room and newspapers pile up outside the door. After a week of self imposed bliss, they move to their tiny, half broken down apartment in the city and begin married life, where Corie's devil may care, no inhibitions style begins to clash with Paul's button up, shy approach. Their personalities are so gratingly opposite, it made me want to see the movie that happened before this one starts. How the hell did these two impossibly attractive people ever get together? It must be physical attraction, because Corie is borderline crazy and Paul is on the edge of boring. Neil Simon wrote some of the biggest comedy hits of the 60's and 70's but his style has not survived the passing decades intact. People just do not talk like this in real life, pattering with constant comedic set ups for the other's perfectly timed witty retort or punch line. It gets rather painful to watch. I think in the sixties and seventies, we were all more willing to take a leap and hear people speak like we wish we all could in the moment: fast, witty and impossibly urbane. Now, with reality TV beating us over the head 24/7, we see how thousands of people interact, not just the folks on the small and big screens available decades ago. It's killed our ability to accept the finely tuned rhythms of Simon's writing. Poor Fonda's Corie now comes across as a bi-polar goofy loon whose mood swings threaten to push Paul to drink & desperation. Redford comes off much better as the poor guy who seems to have married a crazy person and is just now waking up to the fact. Mildred Natwick, who guest starred in every 60's and 70's TV show you can imagine, is the best thing in the movie as Corie's conservative Mom, matched up on a blind date with the couples eccentric neighbor Victor Velasco. Velasco is like that "most interesting man in the world" guy from the beer commercials, played to the hilt by Charles Boyer (Gaslight, Algiers). Simon beats you over the head with a painfully repetitive gag about their being no elevator to the newlywed's fifth floor walk up, forces you to feel sorry for Redford, turns Fonda into a grating bride and then resolves the whole thing with the dramatic flair of the last five minutes of any Brady Bunch episode. I guess this was funny 50 years ago. Now, not so much. Barefoot gets a C-

A fast and funny little crime caper, 1974's BANK SHOT is certainly the only time in film history that George C. Scott and Robert Redford played the same character! In 1972's hit "The Hot Rock", Redford played a clever bank robber after a huge jewel. Two years later and based on a second book by hilarious crime author Donald Westlake, Scott plays thief Walter Ballentine. Sprung after 5 years by his shifty lawyer AG Karp (hilarious Sorrell Booke) and a big & ballsy prison break, Ballentine meets an eclectic team for a one-of-a-kind bank heist. The Mission Bell Bank is temporarily housed in a mobile home, setting up Ballentine and his crazy bunch with a chance to steal the whole damn bank in the middle of the night. A very young Bob Balaban (Close Encounters, Seinfeld) plays the young mastermind behind the heist, Joanna Cassidy is the sexy money behind the job and Clifton James riffs on his Southern Warden routine a couple years before becoming JW Pepper in OO7's "Live and Let Die". Scott has rarely been funnier on film, with the biggest eyebrows and the quietest lisp on record, trying to focus on the heist between a million interruptions. The last half of the film is the actual bank job and its funny, suspenseful and a blast. At less than 90 minutes, this is a quick, fun diversion with a talented cast that gets a B. (All you MAD Magazine fans will love that movie poster artwork from famed Mad artist, Jack Davis. No one filled those hilarious pages quite like Davis, with every square inch of the frame packed with action and fun. He delivers the same on this classic poster.)

A thoroughly enjoyable western with a first rate cast, 1968's BANDOLERO! is several ten gallon hats worth of fun. Dean Martin is at his laid back best as bank robber Dee Bishop, who finds himself and his gang in jail after a botched bank job. Quickly sentenced to hang under the watchful eye of classic sheriff July Johnson (George Kennedy at his best, the same year that "Cool Hand Luke" hit theatres) and his straight laced deputy Roscoe (Andrew Prine), Dee's in a tough spot. James Stewart (Mace Bishop) pretends to be the hangman, plans to breakout his brother and soon the whole gang is on the run into Mexico, with the sheriff and a posse on their trail. The boys kidnap the widow of their robbery murder, Maria Stoner and take her along with them, where she serves as a point of desire by every cowboy on the run AND the Sheriff. Let's give them a break, because Maria is played by Raquel Welch in all her 1968 glory (and she is glorious). Sure, her Latino accent is rather spotty, but her acting is fine and when Dean and Jimmy both fall in love with her, you can relate. Director Andrew MacLaglen (Shenandoah, Cahill US Marshall, Hellfighters) is a Western master. Martin and Stewart have a hell of a good time playing off each other and Jerry Goldsmith sets the whole film to an excellent, typically quirky music score that he composed between "Planet of the Apes" and "Patton". Banolero! is a blast to watch, less predictable than I would have ever guessed and a solid B.

This 1971 comedy is truly vintage Woody Allen. How he manages to squeeze his neurotic Jewish mensch character, a South American assassination and coup, tons of physical comedy, hilarious slams at organized religion and idolatry AND The Wide World of Sports & Howard Cosell into 88 minutes is a lot of fun to watch. Listen for a Marvin Hamlisch score written two years before he broke out with "The Sting". This one is B for Bananas!

If you're in the mood for a rude, adult comedy, dive right into BAD WORDS! A hilarious directorial debut for its star, Jason Bateman, it's fast, crude and very funny. Bateman stars as Guy Trilby, a man with no regard for anyone's feelings but his own and virtually no filter. For reasons only he knows, Guy finds a loophole in the rules for a national spelling bee and decides to enter as an adult. Guy brutalizes every child contestant on his journey to the finale and every confrontation is hilarious. Kathryn Hahn stars as a reporter writing a story on Guy's unusual quest, Philip Baker Hall and Allison Janney are terrific as the senior people running the bee and newcomer Rohan Chand is brilliant as Chaitanya Chopra, a young bee contestant who is on to Guy. From their first encounter Chopra and Guy antagonize the living hell out of each other. As they begin to bond, the relationship is genuine and truly funny. The boy can definitely hold his own. Bateman is very, very funny, pushing the envelope to create a character without any redeeming qualities that you grow to root for due to the single minded focus of his quest. Get ready to laugh, cringe and then laugh a whole lot more. As the title suggests, it's not for the easily offended, but if you like your comedies salty and hilarious and a little dark, you're going to love Bad Words. We give it a $%#@! A.

Maybe there should be a maximum time that you're able to wait between sequels, or maybe there should be an unwritten rule that the original writer or director should come back... Any of those factors might have helped the sequel BAD SANTA 2, which lazily limps to the finish line as a poor imitation of the original. The good news is that Billy Bob Thornton is back 13 years later as Willie Soke. He's game to make Willy even more pathetic and desperate than in the original film. When your opening scenes focus on failed suicide attempts, you're not leaving yourself much room to sink lower. Our fat little boy Thurman Merman is back, still played by Brett Kelly, but showing little gains in brain power since his childhood. Kathy Bates is pretty damn funny as Willie's mom, whose rounded Willie and his elf sidekick Marcus (Tony Cox) up for a major Christmas robbery of a huge charity whose owners match Willie and team for depravity. Some scenes are very funny, but its so lazy that it tries to create scenes from the original again with new characters, and they dont measure up. It should be against the law to waste Octavia Spencer (The Help, Hidden Figures) in a small role this underwritten and unfunny. Billy Bob is so good, there are moments where you actually feel emotion for his character, which is hard to imagine. Unfortunately the more Willie tries to find a better path, the less the film resembles the dark and twisted first film. Crude, mean and nasty just like the original, the humor's not for everyone. For me, its just disappointing. Audiences must have agreed, as it sunk quickly at the theatres. Suffice to say when Christmas rolls around every year and we need a break from the family holiday flicks, we will always find time for the original. BAD SANTA 2? It's one and done for me and I'll give it a D.

Back in 2003 when BAD SANTA first hit theatres, Tamara and I went to a late night show and about fell out of our chairs laughing. As someone who loves everything about Christmas, it was the perfect nasty, offensive, dirty holiday joke ever played on yuletide audiences expecting a holiday movie. Thankfully it holds up just as nastily as mandatory yearly late night viewing at home. Billy Bob Thornton is Willie, a profane, alcoholic safe cracker who poses each year as St Nick to gain access to department store safes stuffed with holiday cash. His partner in crime is the diminutive Marcus, who plays Elf to Willie's Santa and manages to slide through plenty of air ducts to get to security panels and alarm systems. Tony Cox plays Marcus with quick wit, fast fists and a never ending bag of one liners. As Christmas nears, our guys run into several hilarious obstacles. First is a VERY funny John Ritter as a department store manager very sensitive to profanity and suspicious of our duo. Ritter delivers a terrific performance, squirming as he repeats some of Willie's behaviors to his security chief Gin, played to perfection by Bernie Mac. Lauren Graham has a ton of fun (and backseat and Jacuzzi yuletide passion with Willie) as a bartender with a thing for Santa and young Brett Kelly is fearless as The Kid, a pudgy, snot-dripping, curly headed shy victim of bullies who finds a special bond with Willie, who soon finds himself living with The Kid and his half-there grandmother (Cloris Leachman) in their sprawling suburban Phoenix home. If that sounds like the film treads into "feel good" territory, fear not. Director Terry Zwigoff (Ghost World, Crumb) and writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (Crazy Stupid Love, Focus) have crafted a story that's decidedly more filled with attempted suicide, murder, fist fights and loud sex than sugar plums and brightly wrapped gifts. Bad Santa is a dark, decadent gift of jet black comedy with Thornton's all-in, nasty performance at its center. As usual, Thornton is brilliant. Does any American actor do sarcasm better than Billy Bob? I can't think of one. If you're looking for a family holiday treat, leave this one buried under the tree. If you need a nasty, twisted, dark and dirty holiday present, pull BAD SANTA out of Willie's dirty, puke-stained Santa bag. It gets an A every year! Followed in 2016 by Bad Santa 2.

After all the sneak preview screenings of Marvel movies and action flicks I've dragged my understanding and always-game wife to, I owed her a chick comedy. So last night, we got in the holiday spirit extra early with a peek of A BAD MOMS CHRISTMAS. I didn't see the first "Bad Moms" movie, but I don’t think there were any massive character twists I missed in advance. Three modern Moms are doing all they can to hold their families together for the holidays when their Moms all show up unannounced much to their mutual horror. Mila Kunis is Amy, Mom to two teenagers and the daughter of the picture perfect, wealthy Christine Baranski. Amy’s mom showers her grandkids with gifts, criticizes everything Amy does and demands perfection. Peter Gallagher is very good as Amy’s Dad, bowing to his wife’s every demand to keep the peace. The always-funny Kristen Bell is Kiki, who’s widowed Mom has zero boundaries and strange perceptions of their relationship. Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm) is hilarious and twisted. She and Bell generate a lot of horrific laughs and Hines wardrobe throughout is hilarious. Kathryn Hahn rounds out the trio as Carla, a hilariously profane spa worker by day and Mom to a dim-witted teenager. When her ex-roadie Mom (Susan Sarandon) arrives, she brings zero desire to be a Mom, but plenty of laughs. Hahn and Sarandon play off each other really well, their timing is flawless. I haven’t see Hahn in anything except “This Is Where I Leave You” and her comic chops are impressive. I haven’t seen anyone throw away lines at the end of a scene like Hahn in ages. Justin Hartley (This Is Us) takes the movie to a whole different level of funny when he shows up at Carla’s spa for a waxing. His stripper/fireman Ty Swindell (remember that name-Carla does) has some of the best lines in the movie and one hell of a poker face during the wax. Hartley steals every scene in the movie that he’s in and doesn’t mind going into some very adult territory for BIG laughs, extraordinarily big... Wanda Sykes brings laughs in her one scene as a therapist for Kiki and her Mom. Her facial expressions are perfection. There aren’t too many surprises here but you’re in the hands of some superb comic actors and they all take the everyday material up a notch. Kunis is adept at weaving in some nice dramatic moments, the kid actors are all very good and the scene in the church with the elder Moms together drives LOL moments. The opposite of highbrow, it’s a pretty funny, foul holiday movie powered by a great cast. I’ll give it a B- but I’m betting that Tamara and all the ladies at the preview (who collectively hooted, shouted and clapped every time Hartley was on screen) would all give it two thumbs up.

If you like your comedy completely inappropriate and envelope pushing, BAD GRANDPA should make you laugh a lot, I sure did. Johnny Knoxville adds some great makeup and becomes 87 year old reluctant grandpa Irving Zisman. Irving finds himself with an unlikely cross country companion in his 8 year old grandson Billy, played by the hilarious Jackson Nicoll. Like a modern day adult Candid Camera, BAD GRANDPA puts these two in a lot of hilarious places with unsuspecting folks caught with hidden cameras reacting to our odd couple. The scenes at Irving's wife's funeral are laugh-out-loud uncomfortable, but are soon topped by Irving's encounters with a troop of male strippers and a seriously perverted take on a child beauty contest. Young Jackson Nicoll is fall-over-laughing funny as Billy and he and Knoxville never break character as they trap a whole lot of people in some very awkward situations. The fact that the two actually make you care about these two characters by the end of the film is quite a surprise. VERY adult, nasty, rude and funny, Bad Grandpa made me laugh out loud a lot and squirm even more. Can't wait to see these two again, please Paramount, get us The Return of Bad Grandpa asap. Not for the easily offended. Laughed my way to a very solid capital B. The beauty pageant scene alone is worth the price of admission!

Hugh Jackman is excellent as a New York school district superintendent involved in the biggest school embezzlement scandal in history in HBO’s new film BAD EDUCATION. Based on a true story, Jackman nails every tic and mannerism as the fastidious Frank Tassone, a long time widower in careful control of his appearance, his wardrobe, diet and image, soaking up admiration as his school district excels. That control does not extend to his fiduciary morals. We watch as his right hand person Pam Gluckin (the reliably excellent Allison Janney of “I, Tonya”) is exposed for tremendous graft, leveraging the school credit card for personal use on a stunning scale. The film unwinds the crimes of those involved with suspense, drama and more than a little humor as petty cheats on an expense report grow into a massive sense of entitlement. Janney and Jackman are both terrific, sparring and supporting each other in a complicated dance of ever shifting boundaries. Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond) continues to display strong dramatic chops as school board leader Big Bob Spicer. Broadway actress Annaleigh Ashford (American Crime Story) nails her role as a dim-witted relative of Pam’s who’s in way over her head with these master manipulators. Geraldine Viswanathan follows up her terrific comedic debut in “Blockers” with a straight dramatic role as high school journalist Rachel Bhargava. When Frank tells her to not take any story assignment lightly, he lives to eat those words as Rachel digs into school finances and unwraps some very wicked habits. Jackman holds center court. His Frank is a fantastic mess, supremely confident and cocky, in command of his persona and in control of everything, yet spinning wildly out of balance as the cogs in his elaborate machine begin to slip. The moment late in the film in which Jackman finds himself lost in a brief moment of joy on that club dance floor, followed by the agonizing collapse in a driveway are a tour de force for Jackman. He’s a terrific actor. His self-righteous speech about the importance of his role as an administrator as the FBI tears apart the office next door is a perfect meeting of ambition & intention with consequence. The final moments are a terrific wrap of this true-life story that may make you feel a surprising amount of compassion for a man who suddenly seems to realize just how far he’s moved away from having any tangible grasp on the sheer weight of what he’s done. Jackman is fantastic and BAD EDUCATION is one hell of a lesson. It gets a B+.

Following the huge success of the original film, Robert Zemeckis and his cast shot two sequels to the film at the same time, releasing them a year apart. The first sequel released in 1989 is the lesser of the two, BACK TO THE FUTURE II. It seems that the older version of our loud villain Biff (Thomas Wilson) overheard Doc and Marty talking about the time machine when they came back from the past, so he manages to steal the Delorean and go back to the past, to give younger Biff a cheat sheet for the future, allowing he and his descendants in the future to be garishly wealthy. Confused yet? haha The biggest problem with Part II is that it hops back and forth in time so much that you end up with multiple versions of Marty and Doc and Biff in the same scene. Sometimes, especially in the last twenty minutes, that's a lot of fun and perfectly timed for suspense and laughs. But for most of the muddled middle of the movie, it just becomes a bit repetitious. We are talking a Robert Zemeckis movie so there IS plenty to enjoy. Their vision of 2015 is pretty hilarious, and Elon Musk and Steve Jobs HAVE managed to make some of what they envisioned come pretty close, but we are still a long way from freeways in the air loaded with speedy flying machines. Michael J. Fox is great, playing many versions of himself, his dad and hilariously, even his alternative future sister at one point. Christopher Lloyd keeps his energy at full tilt as every version of Doc, always explaining the timelines just enough to keep things rolling. The biggest problem of the film for me is Wilson as Biff. He is so LOUD, so over the top, so one-note, that every version of him in the film becomes grating and unpleasant. It drags the whole film down. That being said, we'll all remember the hoverboard sequence, the holographic ads for JAWS 19 (Directed by Max Spielberg) and the rousing finale chase between the airborne Delorean and Biff's vehicle in 1955. The best parts of the film are Zemeckis' visual brilliance in giving you different angles to the original from 50 yards away, or through a well placed window, giving us a whole new perspective on the original film. In those moments, its every bit as exciting as the first film. The film concludes with scenes from Part III set in the old West, which is far better than Part II. As for this first sequel, it made only about half as much money as its predecessor. I'll call that Biff Burnout and give this second installment a B-.

Back in 1985, BACK TO THE FUTURE arrived on screens and kicked off one of the most enjoyable trilogies of the eighties. Produced by Steven Spielberg and Directed by Robert Zemeckis (Contact, Castaway, Forrest Gump, Allied) its a blast from (and to) the past and enjoyable from start to finish. Michael J. Fox had his first big screen role as Marty McFly, a high school student suddenly thrust 30 years into the past and meeting his Mom and Dad as teenagers. I had forgotten just how much fun the set up was and how cleverly Zemeckis and his writers get Marty back in time. Christopher Lloyd is Kramer-hilarious as the wacky genius Doc Brown, the eccentric Crispin Glover has his most successful mainstream role as Marty's Dad, George and Lea Thompson is sweet, funny and perfect as Marty's Mom Lorraine. So many classic moments from the time-traveling DeLorean, to Marty (Is your name Calvin Klein? It's on your underwear.") dealing with his Mom's flirting, Doc's madcap plan to go Back to the future and the climactic high school dance. It's exciting, funny and a lot of fun, cleverly setting up two sequels that would appear in the following five years as the eighties came to a close. Zemeckis is one of our best directors and his ability to balance big budget special effects, thrills and comedy has turned out some of the most enjoyable movies of the past four decades. Huey Lewis's music adds to the fun and that's him in a cameo as one of the judges at the talent show. The curse of time travel movies is that you tend to spend too much time looking for holes in the logic of the story. Fox and Zemeckis give you NO time to think about logic, knocking you out with laughs and one great set piece after another in this fast moving blockbuster hit. BACK TO THE FUTURE holds up perfectly 33 years after its release and gets an A.