Comedies

She stole his identity, Identity Thief stole my happiness. Like a sponge where water is joy, like a Dementor at a soul buffet, like a prism that only bends darkness, Identity Thief pairs two comedic naturals and proceeds to stalk your laughter, lashing out with brutality every time you think you may want to laugh. Which isn’t often.

Read FilmJabber’s full Identity Thief movie review.

With growing acceptance of the gay community and a trend toward equal rights for all, is it already time to shift our focus to a new kind of discrimination? Zombies are an underappreciated and stereotyped bunch, generally assumed to be lacking in intelligence and having an overzealous lust for human flesh. There are no laws against killing zombies; in fact, it is actively encouraged by every government body except for North Korea and Switzerland.

Read FilmJabber’s full Warm Bodies movie review.

It was only a matter of time. Following in the wake of Fox’s hit TV show “Glee,” Pitch Perfect is a movie about musically neurotic teenagers and/or college students who battle one another for musical supremacy. Original? No. Entertaining? Yes. Funny? Sort of.

Read FilmJabber’s full Pitch Perfect movie review.

Cocoon has been remade, but the aliens have been replaced with opera music. Quartet is a movie about a retirement home for aging musicians, where four old fogies of varying physical and mental capabilities reunite for one final performance. Funny if ultimately insignificant, Quartet is a worthy directorial debut for Dustin Hoffman.

Read FilmJabber’s full Quartet movie review.

A struggling comedian suffers from sleepwalking but fails to incorporate that personal fact into his routine until halfway through the movie in Sleepwalk with Me, a surprisingly entertaining film that defies expectations and establishes itself as one of the most overlooked movies of 2012.

Read FilmJabber’s full Sleepwalk with Me movie review.

There are all kinds of comedies, some more critic friendly than others. Stupid comedies… critics hate those. Dramatic comedies… boy, do critics eat those up. But what really matters when it comes to comedies? I have very specific criteria: a good comedy has to make me laugh.

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In the vein of every movie about awkward teenagers attempting to lose their virginity, The Inbetweeners Movie follows four friends as they travel to a tropical locale to have some fun and get laid (or at the very least don’t embarrass themselves). Based on a British television show, the movie defies expectations to be one of the funnier movies of the year.

Read FilmJabber’s full The Inbetweeners movie review.

I grew out of love with Tim Burton long ago, in reverse correlation to the box office success the director has seen over the last decade. But it’s his smaller, more reserved movies that continue to impress me – Big Fish back in 2003, and now Frankenweenie, a stop-motion capture film that did little from a financial perspective but deserves recognition nonetheless.

Read FilmJabber’s full Frankenweenie movie review.

My fantasy has finally come true. For years I’ve dreamed of a Meryl Streep/Tommy Lee Jones sex scene, and Hope Springs turned those dreams into reality. Funny and heartwarming, Hope Springs looks at the efforts of an aging couple whose marriage is hanging on by threads.

Read FilmJabber’s full Hope Springs movie review.

If a movie review is supposed to pinpoint why a movie is good, this review fails miserably. Overlooked and underappreciated, Goon, starring Seann William Scott, is one of the hidden gems of the year. About a bouncer-turned-hockey player, Goon is an entertaining and lighthearted film that works for no particular reason.

Read FilmJabber’s full Goon movie review.

It took me a while to see Ted. I saw the movie in early August, several weeks after most people had tired of raving about it. It took me even longer to review it, as it’s now December at time of writing. As a result, I apologize in advance for the brevity of this review, and its lack of detail.

Read FilmJabber’s full Ted movie review.

Funny and perhaps predictive of my future, This Is 40 is the fourth movie from director Judd Apatow and a quasi-sequel to the hilarious Knocked Up. A snapshot of one week of the lives of married parents Pete and Debbie, This Is 40 evokes plenty of laughs, even though the scenes are somewhat aimless and eventually unnecessary.

Read FilmJabber’s full Les Miserables movie review.