"BUTT BOY" (2019)

BUTT BOY
Directed by Tyler Cornack
Written by Tyler Cornack & Ryan Koch
Starring Tyler Cornack, Tyler Rice & Shelby Dash
Running time 1 hour and 40 minutes
MPAA rated ???


Classic joke structure is as follows: the Set-Up does exactly what the name implies, giving you all the information you should need to understand the joke and the Punchline provokes a laugh, usually through wordplay or by subverting expectations in some other way.

A man goes up to an aerobics instructor and asks "Can you teach me to do a split?". The instructor says "Maybe. How flexible are you?" and the man replies "I'm only available on Tuesdays."

Of course there are as many alternative joke forms as there are variations on that one, though that's generally how it goes: Set-Up = normal, Punchline = wacky.

Based on a short made for the Tiny Cinema youtube channel, Butt Boy attempts to reverse the traditional joke format by having the Set-Up be eye-rollingly silly while playing the aftermath completely straight. As far as execution of the concept goes I'd say they nailed it, though that doesn't make it "good". I can't believe I'm about to say this about a movie where a man sucks objects into a parallel dimension through his asshole: this movie is kind of boring.

Streaming Recommendation: "THE FOREIGNER" (2018)

THE FOREIGNER
Directed by Martin Campbell
Written by David Marconi, based on a novel by Stephen Leather
Starring Jackie Chan, Pierce Brosnan, Charlie Murphy
Running time: 1 hour and 53 minutes
MPAA rating: R for violence, language and some sexual material

by Hunter Bush

The Foreigner is a solid espionage/revenge thriller which suffers from some odd choices, the most noticeable being some of the dialogue, and a few instances of really sloppy editing. Jackie Chan plays a London man with a shadowy past whose daughter dies in an IRA bombing. When a government official (Pierce Brosnan) neglects to help him get revenge, Chan sets out on a quest for vengeance. You know, the usual. But with the pandemic induced release of No Time To Die delayed until the end of the year, I thought maybe some of you needed a James Bond-esque fix.

"CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE FIFTH KIND" (2020)

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE FIFTH KIND

Written and directed by Michael Mazzola

Starring: Dr. Steven M. Greer, Jeremy Piven, Jeremy Sheehan, Adam Michael Curry, Joe Martino, Jan Harzan and Dr. Russell Targ

Running time: 2 hours

Where do I even start, y'all? In Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind, Dr. Steven M. Greer asks viewers to accept strange truths - that intelligent life exists beyond our planet; that world governments have chosen to cover up most of what they know about the ETs; and that contact between them and us is not only possible but is actively happening, though perhaps not in the way you think. The movies would have us believe that to communicate with other intelligences, we'll have to use some "universal language" like music (Close Encounters of the Third Kind) or mathematics (Contact), but the real mode of communication is both simpler and much more complex. Dr. Greer's hypothesis is that the true universal language is the primary thing binding us to any intelligent life that may be out there: consciousness itself.