The Night Before (Jonathan Levine)

[TGM]

THE NIGHT BEFORE

Director: Jonathan Levine

imdb

[TGM]

So this officially bests The Martian as the funniest movie of the year so far. Absolutely hilarious stuff.

[Henry Gale]

Uhhh wow, I had pretty solid expectations for this, but I can safely say I wasn't expecting this to maybe the best time I've had in the theatre since Fury Road.

Obviously it's a less singular or essential movie than Miller's one from the summer, but it's so impressively and wildly crafted, deliriously funny in spots, and also has this really unexpected emotional undercurrent that Levitt delivers in a way that understandably feels like him and Levine's 50/50 work. Not to mention I'm a huge sucker for all-in-one-night, traipsing about a city / town movies, particularly New York-set ones, and this is like if you put something like After Hours in a blender with A Christmas Carol, Harold & Kumar's Christmas movie, Home Alone 2, The World's End (yes, Wright's not Rogen's), and Superbad all in a blender and it managed to make a delicious, peppermint and/or cinnamon smoothie with hints of nutmeg and chestnut (if only to drive home this Christmas metaphor further).

Even when it's just going through the motions structurally for anything Rogen & Goldberg are involved in, the whole thing just has such a wild, but perfectly glistening and warm look and feel concocted by Levine, his crew (speaking of which, I can't tell if the score was actually made up entirely of excerpts of both Home Alone movies and countless other '90s Christmas fare, or just a perfect impression of them, but tonally it's perfect) and the cast (including Ilana Glazer and Nathan Fielder, who are only in it as much as it makes sense for them to be plot-wise, but still not enough generally for my liking considering how perfect theirs existences are) that somehow gives it this unmistakable classic Christmas-subgenre feel despite the more surreal elements of the R-rated content of the script and the jokes. Or maybe that's exactly why it works.

Not that there's been much competition, but easily Comedy of the Year for me, and instantly something I can't imagine going most future holiday seasons without watching.

In an ideal world, Michael Shannon gets all the Best Supporting Actor nominations.

[Dukefrukem]

James Franco scene was my favorite part. The rest... meh.