Thursday night a friend and I had a girls night and went out to see the new comedy, Death at a Funeral starring Chris Rice. It definitely had us laughing - sometimes to the point of tears - but it is not for the faint of heart, and certainly deserves its R rating for language alone (there is also drug use, nudity, and sexual situations).
Chris Rock plays the dependable and responsible son who is tasked - as the eldest son normally is - with being in charge of his father's funeral. The first scene shows Rock waiting for the funeral home to deliever his father's casket to the living room, whereupon he remarks "that's not my father." which sends the Funeral Director out to "one of two locations that he MIGHT be." This, in turn, sets teh course of events that make the funeral go from bad to worse as Rock's family begins to arrive.
The first half of the film, for me, was rather slow as there were many characters teh film had to introduce. Each having their own issues, personalities, and mini stories that were to play out during the film. We meet Tracy Morgan and Luke Wilson - best friends who are also family friends of the deceased's family. Morgan is a hypocondriac who has about as many brain cells as he has fingers. Luke Wilson is an unemotional, self-absorbed workaholic who's main focus is on keeping up appearances without working at all. They are set up with the task of picking up the deceased's brother played by Danny Glover (who completely stole ever scene he was in). Glover is a grumpy old man whose body has failed him. He's in a wheel chair, but carries a cane, and doesn't have a nice word to say about anyone. Poor Morgan's character gets saddled with Glover throughout the film, and it's a perfect combination of insanity.
Zoe Saldana & James Marsden are a bi-racial couple who are on their way to pay respects to Saldana's uncle. Marsden is nervous because her father is none too happy with their partnership, so when they go to pick up Saldana's brother (played by Columbus Short) he takes what Saldana thinks is a valium. It's later revealed that Short's character - a pharmacy student - has a little drug making business on the side and what Marsden thought was a valium is infact ACID. Marsden's subsequent drug trip is probably one of the most comedic parts of the film.
There's also a scene involving Tracy Morgan getting pooped on by Danny Glover and the whole disgusting scene goes on for about four minutes in which the entire audience is laughing too hard to lose their cookies (but you really want to). Again this is just one of the few gems that made the movie actually worth watching.
The film is actually a remake of the 2007 movie of the same title which was directed by Frank Oz (you know, Jim Henson's right hand man... the voice of Yoda in the Star Wars films). That movie, like this one, is not something to really write home about. And sadly is not one I will be buying to add to my collection.
The movie MIGHT have made it to my collection if it weren't for the fact that the language is just thrown in there for, I don't know, a higher word count. The F-bomb and Mo-Fo phrase were used so many times that I couldn't even keep count if I'd wanted to. There was no reason to use it other than the fact that they didn't know what else to say. It could be argued that it made sense in a couple of scenes where road rage or indignation happened, but it was thrown around like a common every day word. This is by no means a family friendly film, and was not good enough elsewhere to be able to glance over the swearing.
Overall, if nudity, sexual situations (did I mention that the deceased had a midget gay lover?), and language don't bother you - wait and rent the film when it comes out on DVD. If not, skip it entirely.
Had a great time with my friend, though. We can make anything fun (we survived Anthro 101 that way!).
My parents and I watched the latest volume of Phil Vischer's What's In The Bible series this past weekend. I received my copy of the video earlier in the week and we immediately popped it in to see what the team had come up with. This video did not disappoint. 
