Flight of the Conchords - season 1 (2007) - Oddball musical comedy with NZ favorites a hit

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+ Best Musical Comedy of the Year + Best New TV-Series of the Year

Leads Brett and Jemaine resemble bobbleheads dumped out of the sky on this appropriate poster for season 1 of James Bobin, Jemaine Clement and Brett McKenzie's Flight of the Conchords

Duo band mates and best friends Jemaine and Brett are New Zealander expats in New York City, where they attempt to make it big with their odd folk rock group Flight of the Conchords. - Largely without luck, and their life is marred by humorous poverty, as when Jemaine decides to move out of their shared apartment, - and into a cleaning closet (episode 5: Sally Returns).

Flight of the Conchords is created by James Bobin (Muppets Most Wanted (2014), director) and stars Brett McKenzie (Austenland (2013), actor) and Jemaine Clement (Divorce (2016, TV-series), who play fictionalized versions of themselves.
Kristen Schaal (The Hotwives of Orlando (2014, TV-series)) is a hilarious find as the group's married, loony and only die-hard fan.
The show also relies on a very varying bag of comedic songs, often based solidly in the creators strong preference for very obscure topics to riff on, black comedy style. There are wonderful reggae and synth-based songs,
The male-centered, nerdy-black humor sometimes nears the edge of what is still actually funny for other, not New Zealander people, (as in episode 7: Drive By, where the pair face a racist fruit-seller in Aziz Ansari (Funny People (2009))), and the series does tire a bit in energy and ideas during its run, (it begins to be felt around episode 9: What Goes on Tour.) The last episode (12: The Third Conchord) features the Conchords splitting up for a short while to work with two other musicians, who are regrettably so irritating that they dispel most of the fun. - Though McKenzie does an 'angry dance solo', which makes up some for it.
Flight of the Conchords delights as a quirky cultural comedy filled with moments of absurdity, deadpan and verbal comedy, served with an infectious enthusiasm and charming eye-twinkling. 

Best episodes:

1: Sally - Written by Bobin, Clement, McKenzie; directed by Bobin
Brett and Jemaine attend a party, where Jemaine flirts with Sally, who is Brett's ex. After a hilarious double date, she decides to end things prematurely. Featuring uproarious songs of weeping and a future with robots, which is the song used for the band's first music video.

3. Mugged - Written by Bobin, Clement, McKenzie; directed by Bobin
Brett flees, when he and Jemaine get mugged, while Jemaine winds up in jail together with the good-natured mugger for a couple of days. The Conchords sing of the tough life in the streets and finally reconcile with the mugger.

8: Girlfriends - Written by Eric Kaplan (Young Sheldon (2018-19)); directed by Bobin
Jemaine and Brett find a couple of dames out on the town, and Brett scores one of them only to find that she is only out for sex! Traditional gender roles are reversed, as he is rudely discarded. Conchords manager Murray Hewitt (Rhys Darby (A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017, TV-series))) has 2,500 CD's made by "Quincy Jones' brother", which turn out to be mostly sawdust. Hilarious.

10. New Fans - Written by Duncan Sarkies (Scarfies (1999)); directed by Taika Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows (2014))
The Conchords play a world music gig and find two new fans, who they bring to a dinner at super-fan Mel's place, which develops into an LSD night that ends in a seemingly failed threesome. Sidesplitting fun.

11. The Actor - Written by Damon Beesley, Iain Morris (The Inbetweeners Movie (2011), both); directed by Michael Patrick Jann (Atypical (2017, TV-series))

The band hire a dry-cleaner/actor to cheer up manager Murray, who responds by giving the stranger a 2 mil. $ record deal, thus again losing lots of money. With Lord of the Rings-themed song. Very funny.

Related post:

2007 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

Get an idea of what the show is and who Brett and Jemaine are from this trailer for the first season

Cost: Unknown - reportedly very low
Box office: None - TV-series
= Uncertain
[Flight of the Conchords originally aired from 17 June - 2 September on HBO, lasting 12 episodes of around 26 minutes, totaling ca. 312 minutes. It is based on the Conchords' same-titled 2005 BBC radio series. Shooting took place in New York. IMDb users have rated the show so highly, it currently sits at #133 on its TV Top 250, between Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995-06) and Yes Minister (1980-84). The show returned after a prolonged break with season 2 in January 2009. Clement returned in Eagle vs Shark (2007), McKenzie in Pantsed (2008, short) and The Drinky Crow Show (2008, TV-series), also with Clement. Flight of the Conchords season 1 is certified fresh at 95 % with an 8.12/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Flight of the Conchords season 1?

Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) - Bobin, Woolverton and Disney's poorly constructed sequel

♥♥

+ Most Expensive Flop of the Year + Worst Sequel of the Year

Johnny Deep as the Mad Hatter is most prominent on this packed, dizzying, highly detailed poster for James Bobin's Alice Through the Looking Glass

Alice returns home from the seven seas - and faces intransigent challenges. She walks through a mirror to Wonderland, in which the Mad Hatter has grown increasingly mad, apparently because his family's death many years ago haunts him. - Alice must travel back in time to change this!

Alice Through the Looking Glass is the sequel to Tim Burton's good big hit 3D spectacle Alice in Wonderland (2010). It is written by Linda Woolverton (Maleficent (2014)), based on Lewis Carroll's (A Tangled Tale (1885)) characters, and directed by James Bobin (The Muppets (2011)).
The film begins well with the self-assured Alice's return to patriarchal ridicule, but somewhere along the way after this, the illusion that the film tries to build falls apart, despite its radiant colors and exuberant effects.
Sacha Baron Cohen (The Brothers Grimsby (2016)) entertains a Werner Herzog-inspired accent here as the villain Time and possesses some strange, Transformers-like creatures. Johnny Depp (The Libertine (2004)) looks stranger than in the first film as the Mad Hatter and now has frog-like eyes. He does well for the most part, but there are shots in which he visibly struggles to find the right face, and this is understandable: The sappy story about Alice's having to save the Hatter's family, - of whom we only really get to know his unlovable father, - so that that same father can finally accept the Hatter wholeheartedly - is muck.
The story is the main issue here, wobbling and just plain bad. SPOILER As the past sees the future towards the end, everything turns rusty in excremental browns, but why this happens - don't ask, for the film has no answer. Mia Wasikowska (Jane Eyre (2011)), who was a major part of why the first film was quite a thrill, is an adult woman now and much less compelling as Alice.
Alice Through the Looking Glass is a major flop for all involved. Ouch.

Related posts:

Alice in Wonderland (2010) - Wasikowska is the perfect lead for Burton's visual wonderland
James Bobin: 2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
The Muppets (2011) or, Man or Muppet? 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 170 mil. $
Box office: 299.4 mil. $
= Big flop
[Alice Through the Looking Glass premiered 10 May (London) and runs 113 minutes. Shooting took place in England from August - October 2014. The film opened #2, behind fellow new release X-Men: Apocalypse, to a 26.8 mil. $ first weekend, down 70 % from the first film's 116 mil. $, in North America, where it spent another week in the top 5 (#4) and grossed an abysmally low 77 mil. $ (25.7 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were China with 58.7 mil. $ (19.6 %) and Japan with 26.7 mil. $ (8.9 %). The film was one of the year's costliest flops, resulting in a loss of around 125 mil. $. It was nominated for a Grammy and 3 Razzie awards. Bobin has not been hired for another project since. Alice Through the Looking Glass is rotten at 30 % with a 4.6/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Alice Through the Looking Glass?

The Muppets (2011) or, Man or Muppet?

♥♥♥♥


1 Time Film Excess Nominee:

Best Song: Man or Muppet, Brett McKenzie (lost to Albert Nobbs)


+ Best Musical of the Year

The festive, colorful poster for James Bobin's The Muppets

Walter is a muppet born in Smalltown, USA. Now he goes with his human brother and his girlfriend to Hollywood. But the muppet theater there is in the process of being overtaken by an evil oil baron!

Co-writer/star Jason Segel's (Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)) sympathetic heart-blood pumps through The Muppets, the first Muppets movie in 12 years, in which he partners up with equally endearing Amy Adams (Enchanted (2007)). Chris Cooper (August: Osage County (2013)) plays the rapping villain.
Muppets features lots of tongue-in-cheek humor and meta-comedy. It is warm like a cozy pillow with an excessive amount of cameos, - among them, Alan Arkin (Firewall (2006)) and Jack Black (Bernie (2011)) are funny, - and especially one very good musical number, the Oscar-winning Man or Muppet by Brett McKenzie (Flight of the Conchords (2007-09)).
The Muppets is nostalgic fun in a fairly unengaging, predictable plot. Segel co-wrote it with Nicholas Stoller (Gulliver's Travels (2010)), and James Bobin (Flight of the Conchords)) directed it.
Come together with the lovable muppets for a fun, enthusiastic, family-friendly party!

Related posts:
 
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess

Watch the infectious trailer for the movie here

Cost: 45 mil. $
Box office: 165.2 mil. $
= Big hit
[Muppets opened # 2 behind The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1. It became the highest-grossing Muppets movie ever, making 88.6 mil. $ in North America (54 % of the total gross). It got good reviews, many award-nominations and wins and a 2014 sequel that did less business, however. The Muppets also DVD/Bluray-debuted at #2 in the US, and made an additional 52.8 mil. $ from this.]

What do you think of The Muppets?