Butter: Just Watch the Trailer

Jennifer Garner, Ty Burrell, Olivia Wilde, Hugh Jackman, Alicia Silverstone, Rob Corddry. These are a few of the people populating the cast of Butter. But despite this promising roster, the movie is a fairly predictable ho-hum affair. In fact, the only reason to watch it might be to un-ironically appreciate the art of butter sculpting.

Garner plays Laura Pickler, whose husband Bob (Burrell) has won the Iowa State Fair's annual butter sculpting competition for the past 15 years. This year, he has been asked to step down and give someone else a chance, a suggestion that the controlling Laura does not appreciate. She has political aspirations for Bob and craves the limelight, but when Bob refuses to force his way back into competition, she decides to compete herself. Her main challenger is Destiny (played with adorable gravitas by Yara Shahidi), an 11-year old African-American girl who has recently been adopted by Ethan and Jill Emmet (Corddry and Silverstone). The Emmets are anxious to make Destiny feel loved, so they support her newfound talent despite their confusion about why anyone would want to compete in this "redneck" enterprise.

Laura's other rival is Brooke (Olivia Wilde), a stripper who had an affair with Bob and is now claiming that he owes her money. She hates the uptight, judgmental Laura and is determined to take her down. The rest of the movie proceeds along these lines, with some laughs, but not many. At the county competition, the contestants offer up ridiculous speeches about America and following your dreams. But ultimately, it's all just about the butter. Some scenes are amusing, but most of the enterprise feels like jumping through hoops and putting in unnecessary twists that still lead you to the inevitable conclusion.

In fact, if you watch the theatrical trailer for Butter (embedded below), you will have seen the best parts of the movie. There's really nothing more to it, and that's a shame. This is a great cast and they are all very funny in their individual scenes, but there isn't much of a story. It's supposed to be a political satire, but it's more like an SNL sketch that didn't realize it had to end in five minutes and went on for an hour and a half. The butter sculpting scenes are a joy to watch, so if you're intrigued by this art form you could order this movie On Demand or catch it in limited release starting on October 5th. Otherwise, hold out for more promising fare.

Go On: The Comedy of Grief

NBC's latest comedy offering is Go On, starring former Friend and NBC favorite, Matthew Perry. The show's pilot aired during the Olympics and I knew this was my kind of comedy. Now four episodes into the season, I'm sticking with it. Here's why.

Matthew Perry plays Ryan King, a successful radio sportscaster who is trying to cope after the recent death of his wife. He decides to throw himself back into work, but his boss and best friend Steven (the always entertaining John Cho) insists that Ryan attend a support group at a local community center. Ryan joins the group with great reluctance, but after a bumpy start he realizes that he does need these people to help him process his grief.

The group consists of the usual motley crew of weirdos that make up such comic situations. The leader is a woman named Lauren (Laura Benanti) whose previous experience is limited to running Weight Watchers sessions. She will inevitably be Ryan's future love interest, but for now she's preoccupied with getting him to express his feelings and acknowledge that everything is not okay. The other members of the group include: Anne (Julie White) who is angrily dealing with the death of her life partner; Owen (Tyler James Williams, all grown-up from Everybody Hates Chris) whose brother is in a coma after a skiing accident; Yolanda (Suzy Nakamura), an uptight woman whose parents are divorcing; George (Bill Cobbs) who is blind, elderly, and generally frustrated with life; Sonia (Sarah Baker) who is grieving over the death of her cat; Fausta (Tonita Castro), a Hispanic woman whose father and brother have both died; Danny, a seemingly upbeat man who is dealing with the fact that his wife had a baby with another man while he was in the army; and Mr. K (Brett Gelman), who is just bizarre and is grieving over something that no one knows about.

If those character sketches seem a trifle stereotypical or vague, that's because the show is only 4 episodes in. All sitcoms struggle in the beginning because 22 minutes cannot suffice to flesh out every character at once. For now, Matthew Perry is very much the star and the group are supporting players, but if the writers are smart, that dynamic will have to change. Already we're starting to get storylines where Ryan hangs out with individual group members, which gives us a glimpse into their lives and what makes them tick. Once the supporting cast have stories that only tangentially involve Perry, we'll have a true ensemble comedy in the celebrated NBC tradition of shows like The Office, Parks & Recreation, or even Friends. In fact, Go On is compared most often to Community, a beloved NBC show that is seemingly on its last legs. It will be interesting to see what Go On does to ensure that it keeps that dark but funny sensibility of Community while still maintaining some kind of broad appeal to garner favorable ratings. So far, Matthew Perry seems to be the big draw, but the show will have to evolve in order to keep its audience interested.

Go On's comedy is varied and wonderful. There are sarcastic one-liners, darkly funny ruminations on grief, stereotypical sitcom gags, and slapstick humor. It is funny and sad and Ryan King is both sympathetic and aggravating. The writing sometimes seems a little safe, probably because pushing the envelope isn't really rewarded at NBC. But like I said before, I'm sticking with it. Great comedies are notorious for starting out slow - that's true of almost every current Thursday-night comedy. But if Go On sticks to its guns and invests in its characters, it has the makings of a true comedy classic.

Twenties Girl: Ghostly Girly Escapades

My love for all Sophie Kinsella novels was furthered last week upon reading Twenties Girl. Like all Kinsella novels, it features a heroine, Lara Lington, in dire need of sorting out her life, and there is of course, an eventual love interest. But the heart of the story is an endearing friendship between Lara and her great-aunt Sadie Lancaster. Who happens to be a ghost.

Yes, this seems like an unlikely premise for a "chick-lit" novel, but despite the various comic and romantic interludes, this novel often reads like a fantastic mystery. Sadie died at the astonishing age of 105, but was largely forgotten by her extended family and lived in a nursing home for decades with almost no visitors. Lara never knew her great-aunt, so she is thoroughly freaked out at Sadie's funeral when she discovers that she can communicate with her ghost. Also, Sadie's ghost isn't a wizened 105-year old lady, but instead is Sadie at 23, bedecked in flapper gear and desperate to dance the Charleston. Sadie isn't sure how this ghost stuff works, but she knows one thing - she needs her necklace before she can move on.

Once Lara has convinced herself that she isn't hallucinating and is really communicating with a ghost, she takes on the quest for the necklace. The nursing home doesn't have it, but there are a few theories as to where it might have gone that Lara needs to follow up. In the meantime, she is struggling at her job and Sadie's ghostly talents come in useful. Lara recently started up a headhunting business with her best friend Natalie, but when Natalie runs off to Goa for an extended vacation, Lara is left in the lurch and uses Sadie to spy on various recruits and let her know how to contact them. Then there's the family drama, with her Uncle Bill, a self-made millionaire with a chain of world-famous coffee shops, who may know something about that elusive necklace.

While all these plot points are being advanced, Sadie tries to give Lara a twenties makeover, dragging her to vintage shops to buy Bakelite make-up, "real" stockings, sparkly dresses and headbands, and forcing her to ask out a complete stranger on a date, just so that Sadie can go out for a night on the town. Lara is getting over a painful break-up with a man that she is convinced still loves her, but you can figure out what happens next. But you would be hard-pressed to figure out the rest of the story, which unfolds brilliantly in the final chapters as you discover how the mystery of Sadie's necklace is connected to her past in the 1920s and later to Lara's family.

Twenties Girl is a delightful novel with a lot of comedy, romance, and a simply great story. The romantic stuff is standard fare, but the actual "ghost story" is riveting and fun, and will really make you appreciate Kinsella's ability to neatly and sweetly wrap up even the craziest plots. The minute I finished reading, I ordered another Kinsella novel from the library. I suggest you do the same.

Breaking Bad: Cinematic Television

I have been hearing about Breaking Bad ever since its premiere in 2008, yet never felt compelled to watch. But when the show's fifth season premiered this year, I had to take notice. Every Sunday my Twitter feed would explode with people ooh-ing and aah-ing about the latest twists and developments, and I knew this was a conversation I wanted to be a part of. So now, after two months of haphazard viewing, I have finally watched every episode of Breaking Bad. And along with everyone else, I can emphatically declare, Breaking Bad is one of the greatest shows on television.

The show is about a high-school chemistry teacher, Walter White (played by Bryan Cranston who has unsurprisingly won three consecutive Emmys for this role), who is diagnosed with lung cancer and despairs about leaving his family with nothing. Through a series of events, he decides the answer to his financial woes would be to cook meth with a former student of his, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul, also an unsurprising Emmy winner). And thus begins the string of bad choices that frame the world of Breaking Bad. Walt and Jesse are dangerously incompetent and by the second episode, things have already escalated to murder. The resolution of that particular plot point is what firmly ties these two men together, and their partnership grows in leaps and bounds.

The secondary characters serve to heighten the tension - Walt's wife, Skyler (Anna Gunn) initially has no idea what is going on with her husband, but is now fully implicated and trying to keep her teenage son and baby daughter safe. Walt's brother-in-law, Hank (Dean Norris), is the show's true hero, a DEA agent who is tirelessly hunting down criminals with no inkling that someone in his own family might be involved in the meth business. And there are Walt's criminal associates, including the hilarious Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), who is his lawyer and business advisor, Gustavo Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) who runs a massive meth enterprise covering most of the Southwestern United States, and Fring's "security consultant", Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), who has to clean up so many of the messes that Walt and Jesse inevitably create.

The show's greatest achievement is the evolution of its characters. Walter White was a thoroughly sympathetic antihero, a man who was caught in a bad situation and made some poor choices that led him down a dangerous path. Until the season four finale, you kept rooting for him; no matter what heinous thing he did, there was always some sort of understandable justification. But after season four, everything changed. Walt is no longer the bumbling chemistry teacher who is cooking meth to support his family. He has become a drug kingpin, crazy for power, ruthlessly building an empire, and eliminating threats without compunction. Gone are the days when Walt would agonize and moralize his way through every bad decision. In the meantime, Jesse has gradually evolved from perpetual screw-up to the show's moral center. He is just as affected by his bad decisions now as he was at the beginning of the show, and his growing horror with "Mr. White's" actions mirrors the audience's own horror at how much Walt has changed.

Finally, no discussion of Breaking Bad is complete without a nod to its aesthetic. Good shows can rely solely on plot and character development, but truly great shows recognize that television is a visual medium. Set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, episodes of Breaking Bad can offer endless blue skies and desert vistas that you could stare at for hours, or descend into a whirl of frenetic color and chaos that makes it impossible to know where to look first. Music is used sparingly but always to superb effect, either to build or release tension over the course of the episode. The show's opening scenes are miniature masterpieces that can foreshadow the end of the episode or the end of the entire season. Piecing these scenes together is a bonus treat to fans who have to while away the long weeks between episodes or long months between seasons.

Breaking Bad features tightly-scripted plots and pulse-racing thrills as Walt and Jesse defy all expectations and continue to survive in this ruthless business. The cliffhangers are relentless - I don't understand how people watched this show week-to-week and then waited a year for the next season. The cliffhanger for the final episode I saw was a complete game-changer (as every season finale of this show has been), and I can't bear to wait till next summer to find out what happens. But at least I only have to suffer once, since next summer will feature the final eight episodes of the show. There's a lot of debate about how the show's creator, Vince Gilligan, plans to end this story. But no matter what direction he chooses, it will be an epic television event.

QI: Laugh & Learn

The British may produce lavish Emmy-winning costume dramas and hilarious Golden Globe-winning sitcoms, but they are also obsessed with panel game shows. Their TV shows have such short seasons that they need something to fill up the airtime, and panel shows featuring celebrities and comics are their chosen way to go. Which led to the development of what is perhaps the best panel quiz show of all time, QI.

QI (Quite Interesting) is hosted by Stephen Fry, British treasure and Renaissance man. Each episode features four celebrity panelists: three of them vary from week to week, while Alan Davies is the constant fourth. Davies plays the Bertie Wooster to Fry's Jeeves - he will often give the obvious answer, setting off a loud klaxon, flashing lights, and garnering -10 points. And the only rule on QI is that you must never be obvious. The show has a simple set-up: Fry will ask a question and anyone can hit their buzzer and answer. However, the questions he asks are anything but simple. They cover a broad range of subjects and often set out to illuminate myths that have become accepted as fact. For example, when asked what the largest living thing on the Earth is, the obvious (and therefore wrong) answers include blue whales and giant redwoods. In fact, the right answer is the honey mushroom. And beware anyone who answers, "Blue!" when asked what color the Greeks thought the sky was. Turns out, they thought it was bronze because they had no word for "blue."

With questions like that, contestants generally can't be expected to win points by being right (although sometimes they can surprise Stephen and even themselves by coming up with the right answer). Instead, points are mostly awarded for being interesting. This leads to a lot of hilarity, because if you get a bunch of actors and comedians together, there will be a scramble to be the funniest person in the room if you can't be the smartest. But witty banter aside, the guests can have shockingly esoteric interests and skills that lead them to impart some genuinely engaging knowledge. Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) astonished everyone with his knowledge of magical history and other oddball subjects. On last week's episode, Bill Bailey was found to be an adept birder who could name various species by sight. And there are a surprising number of panelists who transitioned from some unlikely jobs - Jo Brand, a popular comedienne, used to be a psychiatric nurse, while actor Ben Miller attempted to get a PhD in quantum physics at Cambridge before leaving to pursue comedy. As a result, contestants often go off on tangents that might teach you more than the actual answer to the question.

Of course, if the panelists are flailing, Stephen Fry is at the helm to supply a steady stream of quips and facts. The behind-the-scenes QI elves constantly supply him with information via an earpiece, so he can address panelist's questions and come up with delightful tidbits that suit every turn in the conversation. As a viewer, I spend the entire half hour laughing at the absurd tangents and jokes that result from every question, but am subsequently shocked to discover that I have in fact managed to learn something. So head over to the BBC iPlayer or seek out episodes of QI wherever you can. The show started its tenth season last Friday, so there is enough quite interesting material available to keep you occupied for a long time.

P.G. Wodehouse: The Early Years

I have read many P.G. Wodehouse novels, starting when I was 14 and got a copy of Right Ho, Jeeves from the library. I am a huge fan of his well-known characters like Bertie Wooster and Jeeves (immortalized on screen by the ever-hilarious duo of Stephen Fry & Hugh Laurie), Lord Emsworth and his pig, the Empress of Blandings, and of course, the monocled Psmith (the P is silent). His stand-alone novels are equally delightful and will introduce you to an array of American gangsters, English butlers, ludicrous lords, and sharp showgirls who present a decidedly raucous and hilarious view of humanity. However, last weekend I downloaded a slew of Wodehouse's early novels on to my Kindle and proceeded to delve into a world of Wodehousian humor that I had never experienced before.

Wodehouse's first novel, The Pothunters (published in 1902), tells the story of a bunch of boys at St. Austin's, a boarding school staffed by long-suffering masters in charge of boys who think a good education involves playing cricket and football instead of doing sums or translating the Aeneid. The central mystery in this story revolves around the theft of a couple of "pots" or school trophies that were supposed to be given out at the annual Sports Day. But that plot point isn't important - like any Wodehouse novel, the focus is squarely on the characters populating this school. The boys are ingenious, equally earnest about creating a perfect school team for football matches as they are about ragging the French teacher in the morning. By the time we find out who stole the trophies, we don't really care, because we just want to know more about the various adventures these inane youths will embark upon.

I also read Tales of St. Austin's, a thoroughly delightful collection of short stories and essays that capture the Wodehouse wit in short form for readers lacking in attention span. And The Gold Bat, which is another novel with a missing piece of sports memorabilia and a mysterious League that is destroying the studies of various students at the Wrykyn public school. These stories are brimming with schoolboy slang and can have some chapters devoted to football, boxing, or cricket matches that are fairly incomprehensible. But once you get past those trifles, you'll find yourself chuckling and thoroughly wishing you could transport yourself to a public school in 1900s England.

Wodehouse's ability to fold the English language on itself and deliver an origami masterpiece of a sentence is unparalleled. Despite writing these books so early in his career, they still serve as perfect examples of what it means to be Wodehousian. The language is spectacular, the stories are ridiculous, and every chapter is laugh-out-loud genius. If boarding schools and scholastic exploits are not your thing, there are 90 other novels for you to choose from. Wodehouse's novels are in the public domain so they're available online for free. You have no excuse - get yourself a P.G. Wodehouse novel today and discover the English language's funniest author. 

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World: Exactly What It Sounds Like

When I first saw the trailer for Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, I was bemused. A comedy about an impending apocalypse? Sounds wildly improbable. But that intriguing concept is precisely what led me to watch the movie last night. It's an interesting exercise in story-telling and I quite enjoyed it, but I recommend it with certain caveats.

To begin with, the lead actors are Steve Carell and Keira Knightley. This posed a problem for many of my friends who simply could not fathom these actors as a couple. But the great thing about this movie is that it takes place in such odd circumstances that Carell and Knightley getting together is not so bizarre. Planet Earth is about to be decimated by an asteroid - who cares if Michael Scott and Elizabeth Bennet become an item? At any rate, the two have great chemistry and after my initial disbelief wore off, I was ready to root for them. Carell plays Dodge, an insurance salesman whose wife leaves him the minute she hears about the asteroid. Knightley plays Penny, who comes into Dodge's life when he finds her crying on the fire escape. She has missed the last flight to England and won't be reunited with her family before the world ends. Carell invites her in; she accepts after making the following bargain: "I promise I won't steal anything if you won't rape me." And therein begins their unlikely friendship.

What follows is a road trip. Dodge decides to find his high school sweetheart who was "the one that got away," and Penny comes along because Dodge says he knows a man with a plane who could fly her back to England. Along the way they interact with various oddballs who are dealing with Armageddon in very different ways - there's the conscientious cop who insists on issuing speeding tickets, even though they're all going to be dead in a week's time. There's the roadside restaurant filled with overly friendly employees and diners who are constantly having orgies. There's Penny's ex-boyfriend who has built a shelter and is convinced he will survive any disaster. At the beginning of the film, Dodge's friends throw a dinner party which quickly devolves into a hedonistic festival where everyone's shooting up heroin and making children do shots, because what else can you do? All these events make the movie feel like an extended sketch comedy, and there are plenty of delightful cameos from people like Rob Corddry, Gillian Jacobs, Patton Oswalt, and Connie Britton. Carell plays the straightman throughout, letting everyone else have the punchline, but he is a wonderfully calming presence in the midst of all this chaos.

It is hard to describe the tone of Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. It has some hilarious one-liners and paints a darkly comic picture of the world on the brink of destruction. However, the movie's true depth comes from Dodge and Penny's burgeoning romance. For all intents and purposes, the two of them are alone in the world. Terrible circumstances have thrown them together, but this just makes their love story all the more poignant. Carell and Knightley offer surprisingly moving performances and demonstrate that as long as you're with the right person, the end of the world doesn't have to be that bad.

Dark Shadows: 1970s Vampires and Vengeance

Dark Shadows is directed by Tim Burton and stars Johnny Depp. This is their eighth collaboration, and by now, most people know what to expect when these two men get together. A highly stylized, oddball world populated with strange people, vivid set pieces, and bizarre antics. The movie can be a hit or a miss depending on the actual story, but the visuals and Depp's performance are nearly always flawless. Such is the case with Dark Shadows, a movie that lacks a great story, but is a feast for your eyes.

Dark Shadows was originally a 1960s soap opera that developed into a cult hit. Depp and Burton were huge fans of the series, and no wonder, because it sounds like a Burton movie from the very outset. However, the film's screenplay was written by Seth Grahame-Smith, the author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. This is not a man renowned for plot and engaging storytelling, since he mostly lifts his material off other authors and throws in some monsters. So what you get is a story that starts off intriguingly enough, but eventually devolves into nothingness.

Depp plays Barnabas Collins, a man who was cursed by a witch in the 1700s after he spurned her for another woman. The witch, Angelique (played by former Bond girl Eva Green), kills his fiancee and turns him into a vampire. Leading an angry mob to his doorstep, Angelique ensures that Barnabas is buried alive in a coffin, where he remains for nearly 200 years until he is accidentally dug up by some construction workers in the year 1972. Barnabas immediately heads for his family mansion and finds the remaining descendants of the Collins family living in a rather dilapidated state as the family business has been steadily declining since the 1700s. Not content with ruining Barnabas's life, Angelique has been working for centuries to destroy his family's business and reputation and has largely taken over the town of Collinsport. What follows is Barnabas's mission to restore his family's honor, get his vengeance upon Angelique, woo the family governess who bears a striking resemblance to his former fiancee, and engage in a lot of humorous confusion over how things have changed since the 1760s.

The movie is initially quite funny and Barnabas' perplexed approach towards 1970s life allows for a good laugh or two. Burton creates a wonderful atmosphere with the gothic Collins mansion in the midst of 1970s America, and the costumes and make-up on Depp and his co-stars, including Michelle Pfeiffer, Bella Heathcote, and of course, Helena Bonham Carter, are just spectacular. The actors all look like they're having a lot of fun, and who can blame them? The characters are ridiculous and over-the-top and very Burton-esque. But the movie's tone veers widely - at first it seems satirical and fun, then it seems like you should be taking this story seriously and the jokes dry up. By the time you get halfway through, you've already figured out how this story has to end, and you're just wearily plodding to the finish line.

Dark Shadows is a fine example of Tim Burton's aesthetic, and I'm sure it looks especially gorgeous on a big screen. But his films are also meant to be entertaining, and Dark Shadows does not deliver. Give this movie a try if you want to see Depp in yet another wholeheartedly kooky performance, but don't expect anything more. There are only so many ways to tell a vampire story.

Doctor Who: Time Traveling Thrills

Last week marked the triumphant return of Doctor Who to our TV sets. This BBC show, which has the honor of being the world's longest-running science fiction show, was rebooted in 2005 by writer Russell T. Davies and made the Doctor a beloved TV character to a whole new generation of people who had never seen the show since it went off the air in 1989. In 2010, however, Davies left the show, and Steven Moffat took over as head writer. Already renowned for crafting some of the spookiest, most inventive episodes of the show, Moffat has ensured that every episode is an emotional roller coaster chock-full of thrills, surprises, and "timey-wimey" magic.

The show follows the Doctor, a humanoid alien Time Lord who travels through space and time in a spaceship called the TARDIS. On the outside, the TARDIS looks like a blue police box, but when you enter, you discover that it's quite a bit "bigger on the inside." The Doctor always has a human companion, but the current Doctor (played by Matt Smith with irresistible panache in a bow tie and fez) is somewhat unusual because rather than just one pretty girl, he also has her husband come along on his adventures. This couple, Amy and Rory, have been the show's heart for the past two seasons and the premiere episode last week further confirmed how invested we've become in their truly epic love story. Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill do a wonderful job portraying these characters who stay together through impossible odds, and the truly devastating thing about this season is that we know they are leaving the show. We don't know how it will happen, but it will be one of the most heartbreaking episodes of an already heartbreaking show.

Of course, the show is also spectacularly funny, with all three actors delivering perfectly-timed one-liners and double-takes as the occasion demands. Time travel allows for a great deal of  comic confusion, while exploring the far reaches of the universe can results in a lot of misunderstandings and faux-pas with other aliens. The show also deals in extremely complex story arcs that can take seasons to unfold. For example, the character of River Song, played by Alex Kingston, was first introduced in 2008, but it was only in last year's season finale that her relationship to the Doctor was unveiled. Even individual episodes can be complex and unfold in mind-blowing fashion over just 45 minutes, like "Blink," a brilliant stand-alone episode that brought us the terrifying aliens known as the Weeping Angels who can only attack you when you're not looking directly at them, i.e. "Don't blink!"

At it's best, Doctor Who provides breathtaking science fiction storytelling with a very human core. It introduces impossible flights of fancy and imagination, but is always grounded in the relationships between the Doctor and the various people he meets on his travels. Ideally you should get DVDs of the show and binge-watch to fully indulge in the masterful narrative that keeps this show so interesting and popular. But for now, just tune in to BBC America (or whatever channel airs it in your country) on Saturday night and start traveling with the Doctor. You won't regret it for a second.

The Trip: Two Traveling Comedian Food Critics

The Trip is a movie that made me laugh out loud several times. Which is surprising because it doesn't sound like it should be that funny. Watching two men eating at various restaurants and driving around the north of England could get dull quickly, but this movie never does. From start to finish, it will keep you entertained and leave you wanting more. Which is fine because I discovered that it was originally a six-part BBC series that was edited down to make this movie. So I will be spending the next few days watching the series and chuckling all over again.

The two comedians, playing somewhat fictionalized versions of themselves, are Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, who are well-known personalities in the UK but not so much in the US (except to dedicated Anglophiles). The premise is that Coogan has to write a column for The Observer's monthly food magazine - he plans a trip to review restaurants in the north of England with his American girlfriend, Mischa, but when she gets called to the States on business and proposes a "break" in their relationship, he is left in the lurch. He finally calls Brydon, who hesitatingly agrees to accompany him on the trip.

The pair have a very uneasy relationship. Occasional colleagues and comedic rivals, there's a strong streak of competitiveness between them. Brydon has been enjoying a lot more recent success while Coogan is constantly on the phone with his American agent, trying to get roles in "mainstream" movies and worrying that he might have become too old to get another big break. Brydon is also an established family man with a wife and baby at home, while Coogan is a divorcé with a now disinterested girlfriend. He is constantly trying to one-up Brydon, who is far too satisfied with his life to pay much attention to Coogan's insecurities.

However, whenever these two men sit down to eat a delicious meal, the movie crackles with humor. Every conversation consists of a series of astonishing celebrity impressions - Woody Allen, Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins, and most famously, Michael Caine, are all dissected through impressions that get progressively weirder. Brydon is clearly the more skilled impressionist, but it is hilarious to see Coogan square off with him and debate just how nasal Michael Caine's voice is, or what the right inflection is when delivering a Bond villain's menacing speech. At these moments, Brydon and Coogan are just trying to crack each other up, and you can see their true enjoyment when a perfect joke is crafted or an impressively spot-on impression is performed.

The movie is also gorgeous, featuring mouthwatering meals, spectacular scenery, and literary excursions as the pair visit the homes of Coleridge and Wordsworth. It is a thoroughly satisfying experience for all of your senses, especially your sense of humor. The Trip demonstrates that a great comedy can be created just from a series of conversations between two hilarious people, and sometimes the simplest premise is the best. There are already plans to create a second series of The Trip with the pair going on a tour of Italy. Sign me up.

The Swell Season: Love & Music After the Oscars

Once, the poignant movie about an Irish busker and a Czech woman who meet in Dublin and over the course of a few days make some beautiful music, was one of the most successful indie movies of 2007. This year, the stage adaptation of the film won the Tony for Best Musical, further confirming that this seemingly small story continues to strike a chord with people. For anyone who loved the movie and/or the music that Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova put together so simply and movingly, The Swell Season is a must-see documentary.

The movie follows Hansard and Irglova on their two-year tour with their band, The Swell Season, right after winning the 2007 Best Original Song Oscar for the heartbreaking "Falling Slowly" from Once. The documentary was filmed from 2007 to 2010 and originally was meant to be a straightforward behind-the-scenes look at everything that goes into a successful and exhausting two-year tour. However, the filmmakers stumbled upon a parallel story, the changing dynamics in the relationship between Hansard and Irglova, who fell in love while filming Once. As the film progresses, we watch their relationship evolve and eventually crumble under the pressures of fame.

Hansard started busking in the streets of Dublin at the age of thirteen and was in his mid-thirties when Once put him on the map and brought him worldwide acclaim. He is a dynamic personality, loud and passionate on stage and warm and friendly with the newfound fans who demand autographs and pictures at every stop of the tour. On the other hand, Irglova was barely out of high school when she was catapulted into fame, and the film makes it clear that she has her reservations with fame and prefers to keep some distance from all this fervent adulation. Ultimately, these differing attitudes are what come between the couple - neither can understand why the other feels the way they do, and there's only so long that they can tell each other to cheer up and keep going.

The documentary is shot in sumptuous black-and-white, leading you to focus wholly on the conversations and stellar music that punctuate every scene. Hansard and Irglova pour their lives into their songs, and while they often can't wholly explain their feelings when talking to each other or the filmmakers, they make themselves perfectly clear in song. Hansard's relationship with his parents also makes for some moving scenes, and everyone has their own idea about the best way to deal with fame and renown, which causes a fair amount of friction.

The Swell Season feels like a natural sequel to Once, all the more poignant because it is a true story of two extremely talented and likable people. Despite their differences, the two of them are bonded by their shared experience, and as Irglova puts it, if they can't make it in this life, they might in the next. But though the romance may not have worked out, the music continues.