Don’t Think Twice

An improv group called the Commune faces an uncertain future when their theater is closing and members of their team are faced with life-changing events. Writer-director-actor Mike Birbiglia plays Miles, an improvisational actor in his mid-30s who feels passed over, while Jack (Keegan-Michael Key) finds himself in line for a role on The Weekend (the film’s less copyright infringed stand-in for Saturday Night Live). Gillian Jacobs—who’s having a nice year with this and her role in the excellent Netflix series Love—plays Jack’s girlfriend, Samantha, who also has a chance to advance her career. They, and other members of the troupe, must decide between real money-paying gigs and doing what they actually love, getting up on stage and making up stuff for free. I personally, can’t stand watching comedy improv, so that perhaps knocks the film down a peg for me, because there’s a lot of bad improv in this movie. Balancing things out for the better is the performances from all involved, especially Key and Jacobs, who should do more projects together. Birbiglia does a nice job of portraying the artistic need to do one’s art in the face of all adversity.

1 Suicide Squad|Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was a skunk blast to the face for most of us trying to have a good time with a superhero movie earlier this year. Suicide Squad looked like a chance to get DC movies back on the good foot. With David Ayer (Fury, End of Watch) at the helm, and a cast including Will Smith, Jared Leto and Margot Robbie, it looked like summer was due to get a fun blast of movie mischief. Suicide Squad does nothing to improve the summer blockbuster season. It actually sends a big, stinking torpedo of shit into its side, and sends the thing barreling toward the bottom of the bowl. Yes, I’m equating this film to a large, destructive, malicious turd. That’s being kind. After a first half build-up/tease that does a decent job of introducing bad guy characters like Deadshot (Smith), Harley Quinn (Robbie) and the Joker (Leto), the movie becomes what can only be described as a spastic colon, resulting in that big turd referred to above. While Smith and Robbie deliver relatively fun performances, the movie is a scattershot mess with no sense of direction. The tone is all over the place, as if the studio meddled and turned the movie into a hackneyed heap of nothing. Seriously, nothing in this movie, including the reason for forming the squad and the motives of the main villains, make any sense.