In their near never-ending quest for box office gold Hollywood studios (in this case we’re talking about an “indie” upstart), another stand-up comedian is plucked from the clubs (in this case it’s arenas and stadiums) and plunked in front of a motion picture camera. That was the case of vaudeville and nightclub stars back in the “golden age”, but the idea of fashioning a flick around a comic’s “schtick’ really took flight forty years ago with Steve Martin as The Jerk. He became an enduring movie star, much like Rodney Dangerfield and later Tim Allen. A more recent example would be Amy Schumer breaking through with Trainwreck, though her follow-up flicks have struggled at the multiplex. Now comes a (hope to be) quirky lil’ low budget flick that stars a comedian who has certainly “paid his dues” over the last 22 years, bouncing between TV shows and supporting film roles.
- 6/27/2019
- by Jim Batts
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Miranda Bailey’s narrative directorial debut “Being Frank” is a comedy about male hypocrisy set in 1992 that dives into many intriguing ideas and issues and gives us a lot to consider. This is commendable — given that many commercial comedies give us nothing to consider at all — but there is a tug-of-war here between her attempt to explore her characters in a very serious way with a consistent emotional basis and the demands of the material as written by Glen Lakin, which is clearly meant to be played as farce most of the time, particularly towards the end.
The first moments of “Being Frank” show high school senior Philip (Logan Miller) doing a practice job interview with his father Frank (Jim Gaffigan), and the way the shots are composed makes us feel Frank’s bullying control over his son; the effect is oppressive and even alienating at first, but to a point.
The first moments of “Being Frank” show high school senior Philip (Logan Miller) doing a practice job interview with his father Frank (Jim Gaffigan), and the way the shots are composed makes us feel Frank’s bullying control over his son; the effect is oppressive and even alienating at first, but to a point.
- 6/13/2019
- by Dan Callahan
- The Wrap
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