I was waiting for Stephen Colbert to produce something funny. I waited, and waited, and waited... but the only joke in the Col-bear Re-por is its name, and that got old after the first repetition. You have to be a hard-wired politics addict to find anything funny in Colbert's show - it's the sort of "satire" the idiot radio-show lieutenant in "Good Morning, Vietnam!" inflicted on people who had to be drafted to hear (aptly summed up as "your show sucks the sweat off a dead man's balls... ").
Imagine my surprise, then - I'd seen a few episodes of the television series version of "Strangers," was unimpressed, but decided to give the movie version a try. I'm glad I did.
The MOVIE version of "Strangers with Candy" is actually pretty funny. Not because it's an extraordinarily well-written story - but the acting talent showed up for work instead of phoning it in, the way big-name stars do so often in B-movies. To paraphrase one of the celebrity GEICO commercials, "Real actors really acting... what a concept!"
This story needed to be adapted for a movie, somehow. What came over as hackneyed and lame in the series is edgy and funny in the movie. The thousand nasty little gags fit the pace of the movie much better.
Even Stephen Colbert manages to be funny in this movie, something I just don't see happening in the "Re-por" (and as much as I really want to laugh at something he does on that show... it doesn't happen).
There's this scarily authentic blend of nerdiness and depravity that just... works somehow. Amy Sedaris kills in a very, very bizarre role - I'm not going to spoil it if you're unfamiliar with the show's main premise, but it's really out there... and yet... it works. Just sit there and let the strangeness wash over your mind in waves.
Perhaps part of the appeal of this film are the flashes of familiarity from real high school... the semi-lethal drivers' ed simulators, the teachers who missed their vocations by being born too late to work in East German reformatories, the nearly edible cafeteria food, unrequited love with unlikely objects of adoration... goofiness overlaid with multiple coats of malignancy.
Watch it. Just don't admit to watching it. And wash your hands afterward.
Imagine my surprise, then - I'd seen a few episodes of the television series version of "Strangers," was unimpressed, but decided to give the movie version a try. I'm glad I did.
The MOVIE version of "Strangers with Candy" is actually pretty funny. Not because it's an extraordinarily well-written story - but the acting talent showed up for work instead of phoning it in, the way big-name stars do so often in B-movies. To paraphrase one of the celebrity GEICO commercials, "Real actors really acting... what a concept!"
This story needed to be adapted for a movie, somehow. What came over as hackneyed and lame in the series is edgy and funny in the movie. The thousand nasty little gags fit the pace of the movie much better.
Even Stephen Colbert manages to be funny in this movie, something I just don't see happening in the "Re-por" (and as much as I really want to laugh at something he does on that show... it doesn't happen).
There's this scarily authentic blend of nerdiness and depravity that just... works somehow. Amy Sedaris kills in a very, very bizarre role - I'm not going to spoil it if you're unfamiliar with the show's main premise, but it's really out there... and yet... it works. Just sit there and let the strangeness wash over your mind in waves.
Perhaps part of the appeal of this film are the flashes of familiarity from real high school... the semi-lethal drivers' ed simulators, the teachers who missed their vocations by being born too late to work in East German reformatories, the nearly edible cafeteria food, unrequited love with unlikely objects of adoration... goofiness overlaid with multiple coats of malignancy.
Watch it. Just don't admit to watching it. And wash your hands afterward.