The Seventh Annual Los Feliz Invitational!

This week, it's the final round of the 7th Annual Los Feliz Invitational, at Gangbusters!

Wooden Furniture is defending their title, and the Mk. II Los Feliz Cup, against the likes of Los Angeles comedy luminary Jake Kroeger, Christina Catherine Martinez, The Death Laser's Michael Heiman, Holston & Rogers, Destroy All Monsters, The Agency, Rando, and... Mandy Patinkin?

Gangbusters! happens every Friday night at 11, but this is one all-out comedy brawl that's not to be missed!

#2,354: Power Rangers

Guardians of the Galaxy - ★★☆☆☆
I still don't think this is very good, but I'm not as mad about it. I do feel comfortable keeping Guardians in its spot as the worst MCU movie though.

Magicians: Life in the Impossible - ★★★½☆
This documentary makes the argument that magicians are even sadder than open mic comics.

Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World - ★★½☆☆
This is almost an anthology film of short documentaries about the internet. Some folks seem to be saying that since Herzog is not from the internet, he shouldn't be making them, but this is nonsense. He's an outsider to many of the niches his documentaries visit, and we like that about him and them. Still, I would have cut maybe two chapters.

Power Rangers - ★★★☆☆
Krispy Kreme's Power Rangers is... kind of okay! It's got a lot of good ideas for a power rangers reboot, but it doesn't quite get them all on the screen. I wonder if there was a rewrite done to specifically address the fact that the suits are impractical and boring. It makes the movie feel like a cinematic stress dream.

It would have been fun if they were able to use their powers, so that we could watch the rangers learn to handle them. Maybe they could have left the Batcave at some point and fought some bad guys– puttys attacking the playground (I mean, town) is kind of a staple. Instead, everyone knows how to use all of the alien technology automatically. Maybe it's all really well designed. Maybe one of the ancient rangers was their civilization's Jony Ive.

And it's got the theme song! I was expecting a modernized version under the credits that never turned up, but at least this movie succeeded where X-Men: First Class let us down.

I am curious though– what are the power rangers supposed to do now? I mean, presumably Zedd or someone shows up in the sequel, but what do they do until then? Are they fighting street crime? ISIS? Attending book fairs? They seem pretty popular with the public despite the fact that it's probably against their code to ever appear in public again.

Set List: Technology!

This week, Set List at the Pack is brought to you by... Technology! Technology: Dig it!

Set List at the Pack is a completely improvised stand-up show that happens every Thursday night at 10:30, at the Pack Theater in Los Angeles, CA. 

Gangbusters! Test Sheets

Making hay while the sun shines, or in this case, Gangbusters! posters.  Please enjoy this fine screenprint test sheet, and also our live comedy show, Fridays at 11. 

#2,349: Get Out

Before I Fall - ★☆☆☆☆
This year's [sci-fi premise + high school] entry.

It's said that in Harold Ramis' vision of Groundhog Day, Bill Murray's character spends perhaps hundreds or thousands of years working his way to enlightenment by reliving that same day. So here's our pitch: let's take a group of teens that are meant to be pretty unlikeable at the outset, you know, so we can show what a journey they've taken? And we'll give just one of them the chance to set things right by letting her relive her day, oh, how about half a dozen times? I'm sure that'll do it.

It's goofy beyond belief, but just beginning to count the ways in print feels a little bit mean.

Sleight - ★★★☆☆
Mostly neat. A little bit fast and loose with its own rules. I'm always interested in 'magic' movies to see where they do practical tricks vs. visual effects.

(Okay, again, I want to avoid the list of nerdy nitpicks, but for real, just about everyone casually touches him on the arm at just the right spot and nobody notices anything? Even he doesn't flinch at it? Seems like a weird choice.)

The Belko Experiment - ★★½☆☆
Another B-Movie. B for Blumhouse. Everything they make is like, passable, but you wish they'd gone just a little bit further. Their whole company lives and dies by the 80/20 rule. (Which is going great for them, of course, but I'm always a little let down.)

As to the movie itself, it seems like a waste to enter this little niche of a subgenre if you don't have anything new to contribute or say or do or add. I didn't realize that James Gunn wrote it until I looked it up on Letterboxd, but that makes sense to me.

Get Out - ★★★½☆
This movie doesn't make me think that Jordan Peele "reinvented" horror or whatever, but It does make me think that he grew up watching movies made in that time when horror and sci-fi movies were about something. Get Out, like an early Romero Dead movie, or Invasion of the Body Snatchers, is a movie about something, and we do need more of those. It's a pretty straightforward horror flick– could've been made 30 years ago, except for if it couldn't've been made 30 years ago.