It's a Disaster

"Johnny-crazy-balls over here is going to save us all from Armageddon." Every now and then a group of four couples get together for brunch at someone's house. Today is that day and Tracy (Stiles) is bringing her new boyfriend Glen (Cross) over to meet them for the first time. The conversation begins to unravel quickly and secrets come out that threaten to ruin the brunch, then they find out that the world may be coming to an end. This is another movie I didn't watch any of the previews for so I wasn't sure what to expect. I have to say that this is one of the funnies indi-comedies that I have seen and I laughed out loud just about the whole way through. The writing is so good and each character had his or her own little quirks which made it really fun to watch. This is the kind of movie where each joke builds on the next one and there is so much going on that you can't turn away nor do you want to. This is one of the funniest movies I have seen in awhile and I highly recommend seeing this. I loved it. Overall, another example of how the low budget under-the-radar movies are better then the big Hollywood blockbusters. I give it an A-.

At times It's a Disaster is a bit hard to stay with, because essentially it is a film that focuses on the 'friends' who are together at one of their periodic 'couple's brunch'. While gossipy asides and barely concealed relationship tensions are present as normal, this particular brunch is marked out by some form of major attack on the US occurring as they sit to their meal. While responding to this is now on the agenda, what that means is different for each person, and of course the former business of the meal also still remains.

Recently I watched the sci-fi film Coherence, where the drama is all played out more or less in one house on one night. This film takes a similar approach and, although there is not really any other connection between the two films, it is interesting to see how the same basic location and ensemble structure can be used to support two such very different films. In this case the focus is the black comedy of the situation and although it is never as smart or as funny as one would have liked, it is consistently amusing in its acerbic characters and extreme background. The writing is a bit broad and it is no real surprise when infidelities and other such secrets emerge from within the group, but mostly it has a solid degree of truth about it all. The downside of this is that the characters are not particularly likable, so while elements of them are recognizable and amusing to observe, there is a lot about them which grate – which is part of the satire, but also a side effect.

The performances are mixed. Cross plays the straight man of the group really well and also allows a character for the viewer to follow, since he is new to the group; Stiles and Ferrera are also both reliable. For the others it was variable but not as memorable as these three. The writing is part of the limit on them, since it is broad across the group, with simpler characters rather than fleshed out ones. Filming around the one set of rooms is well done, and I liked the repeated external shot of the house – and that we never see more of the outside world than this. As a while, the film is too broad to really be brilliant, and it never skewers its characters as it should, or produces great laughs, or something deeper. It works for what it does, but I can understand the mixed response to it, because it is only okay rather than brilliant.

It's a Disaster (2012)

You might not click with this movie right away, or at all, if you don't like the very ordinary style and very ordinary people this group of eight is meant to portray. I recognized too many of my friends, or friends of friends, in these clichéd types of people, and thought the acting and the situation very realistic.

Realistic within the bounds of a really funny somewhat absurdist comedy.

At first you have a gossipy parody of a weekend "couples brunch" where four couples converge, and have been regularly converging, to catch up and have fun. Except that secretly many of them really dread it, and there is some posing and whispering. As a viewer you enjoy the repartee, which is often pretty funny in a laugh out loud way, and you also try to figure out who is who, and whose is whose (the couples include at least one case of infidelity between them which complicates that part).

And I admit I might not have lasted an hour and half of this interplay, no matter how well performed. (To be emphasized, all eight are vivid and convincing in their own ways. It's the core of the movie that these are believable types.)

But you won't need patience once the huge (huge) twist comes along. It's a classic "ship of fools" scenario, and it's compressed into a very short space: a bunch of distinctive types of people find themselves trapped together in a crisis. That's just the interesting starting point, because it's how, exactly, those kind of people respond to crisis that makes it fascinating.

It works. We get to know the four or five most important people really quickly and when things shift and reactions mount--and the jokes keep flowing--you'll be right along for the ride. Some might call this a dark comedy since the backdrop becomes exceedingly dire, but the reality of that darkness is never salient. The humor, right to the very last three seconds, is cutting and bright.

Why, quite, this isn't a masterpiece is one of those amorphous mysteries of the movies. It lacks, I suppose, some sense of air, or of knowing-ness, or of a style that suffuses whether you quite realize it or not. Something about the very ordinariness of it all makes it wriggle in a sufficiency that keeps it from rising up, or getting really gritty. I don't think it's a flaw. It might even wear well over the years. But it makes some of the weaker characters and weaker lines glare just slightly.

See this? Yes! If you just hate the characters after ten minutes, you might give up. Even after the big twist about twenty minutes in the movie is very character driven. But if you sort of like their company and their humor, dive in and hang on. It's a hoot.

I was surfing through Netflix, where this movie has a nearly 5-star rating, and watched because of that (very few Netflix movies rank that high). I didn't even read the preview.

I figured it was a comedy because David Cross is in it, but he seemed at first to be playing such a straight role that I thought this was a drama. It ALMOST lost me until the moment the characters learned they were all about to die, at which point I couldn't stop laughing!

It begins with several couples talking about inane and stupid things, much like an episode of Seinfeld. Just go with it because your reward is to come.

It's as if Jerry, Elaine, George, Newman and Kramer are facing the end of the world, joined by Elaine's new boyfriend, David Cross. These characters all face death with the same focus on petty minutiae in their final hours as the Seinfeld cast would. It's hilarious!

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to find out that the world is ending? In most movies and TV shows, we see the characters either die a grisly death, or transform themselves into an everyday action hero. But It's A Disaster is not most movies, and it's all the better for it.

It's A Disaster follows Glen, played by the superb David Cross, as he is invited to a dinner party to meet his new girlfriend's group of friends. Soon after the dinner party starts, the group find out that a dirty bomb has been set off downtown and the radiation is going to kill them if they go outside. The rest of the movie follows each character as they each deal with the crisis in very different ways.

The tone is set right from the start, with a wonderful exchange about listening to the car radio. It has very little to do with anything but it is very funny, and this theme runs throughout. Fans of Seinfeld will be in heaven here, as a number of mundane social conventions are deconstructed hilariously, with each character providing a different angle to keep the comedy fresh. The acting and writing is top notch, with a number of well place dramatic beats punctuating the sharp comedy and a slew of memorable characters, the best of which is Shane; a geeky weirdo who seems to have been thinking about these types of situations way too much.

There are a few missteps; America Ferrera's character is more annoying than funny, there is a reveal about Glen which seemed to come out of nowhere and it starts to lose a little steam towards the end, but these are minor complaints in an otherwise highly enjoyable comedy. This is one dinner party you'll be happy to attend.

A sharply written and wonderfully acted comedy. It's A Disaster is anything but.