Sunday, January 24, 2010

Death At A Funeral - A Rant and a Rave

Death At A Funeral is a British black comedy that came out in the summer of 2007. I first learned about this movie while at the theatre to see what turned out to be a very bad movie. The preview for this movie was funnier than the every single second of the movie I paid to see.

Unfortunately, when the movie finally came out, it was only in limited release, so I kind of forgot all about it. (It did not come to a theatre near me!) Fast forward to December of 2009 - I'm shopping with one of the besties and hanging on the theatre wall is an enormous poster for Death At A Funeral - coming in spring of 2010. That can't possibly be the same movie, can it? Those are all American actors. I IMDB it. Sure enough it's a remake of the 2007 film. Why the hell do they need to remake a film that was just made? It was made in English - it's not like it was a foreign film that needed translation!! I'm speechless in frustration. I immediately (well when I get home) email one of the friends that saw the horrible movie with me, and thought that Death At A Funeral looked funny... sharing my outrage at the situation with him.

Oddly, I get a response straight away (He's one of those that can take a while to respond - a day, a week, a month, never). He's just as outraged as I am! (Yay for vindication). But in his case it's worse - he has a copy of the movie and has never seen it. I, being overly eager as usual, email him back right away - do you still have the movie? Do you want to watch it together?

No answer. (To this day - more than a month later - no response on that email. No big, honest, I'm pretty used to it... at least on this front). Knowing that was a likely possibility, as soon as I sent the email, I sent another email to another friend. Add this movie to your Netflix queue - please. Done.

So now - a month later (took a while to bump it around in the queue and such), last Thursday in fact, the friend that Netflix'd the movie for me tells me that it's in. He doesn't seem particularly interested in watching it - that's fine I have odd taste in movies, so I ask him to bring the movie to our shared class Friday morning. I have one class Friday morning, then all day to watch a movie if I want. That's fine, it's a plan. I get to class - no movie - he forgot. So I ask about getting it from him later, and he says he'll bring it over Friday night and we can watch it together - it'll be late (9ish) but that's fine. I've got other stuff I can do during the day. As I'm heading out for happy hour, I get a text from him that he can't make it. (I'm starting to get the feeling that the Gods don't want me to see this movie.) Do I want to come get the movie? No I don't bloody want to come get it, I'm leaving for happy hour! So I grit my teeth and text him back, telling him that it's fine... he's coming for dinner Saturday night, just bring the movie with him. If he decides NOT to come to dinner just to send it with our mutual friend who I knew would be coming for dinner.

So later Friday night, I confirm that he's bringing the movie Saturday, and ask if he's planning to watch it with me. The answers are both in the affirmative. Great.

Saturday night rolls around, and he shows up for dinner with the movie around 5:30... we have dinner, one of our other friends comes over for dessert. A couple people leave, and I ask about watching the movie. The friend that came over for dessert isn't really interested - British Comedy kinda bugs her. The friend that told he was going to watch it with me, tells me he's not going to stay for the movie. I sigh deeply and try to control myself. (It doesn't work very well).

Great - so I'm going to watch this movie alone. Clearly this movie and I have some issue. But for some reason, my friend that doesn't like British Comedy decides to stay and watch for a few minutes... I'm pretty sure it's purely out of pity for me. (I bet I looked pretty damn pitiful at that time - I mean I originally intended to watch the film by myself - but then I got excited about watching it with someone - and then got disappointed). She ended up staying for the whole thing and enjoying it!

ANYHOW - So I finally got to watch the damn movie. And my review of it is a RAVE!

It stars Matthew MacFayden, who you probably know as Mr. Darcy from the latest incarnation of Pride and Prejudice (the one with Keira Knightley), Alan Tudyk who is currently in the almost finished Fox series Dollhouse, and Kris Marshall, who we all know best as Colin Frissel in Love Actually. (And plenty of other people, but these are the ones I recognized from other things).

IMDB says it's a story about a family that puts the F U in funeral.

I loved it. I thought it was super funny. It starts off with the people from the funeral home bringing the wrong body to the funeral... and goes down hill from there.

I will probably buy this movie eventually. I will also probably boycott the American version. I don't see the need for a remake - it's not like the British accents are hard to understand (they all appear to be upper class Brits - you know with the posh accents).

Anyhow - if you're looking for something random and funny watch Death At A Funeral. I'm pretty sure you'll laugh.

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