Unfrosted, the new Jerry Seinfeld and Melissa McCarthy movie about Pop Tarts, his popped it’s way to the top of Netflix‘s global movie charts, despite sitting on a decidedly undelicious 39% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Seinfeld’s stated aim to make a brand-based movie that wasn’t Barbie seems to have been achieved, with many reviews pointing out that Barbie was funny, well written and entertaining – while Unfrosted is “cluttered and unfunny” (InSession Film), “nothing particularly remarkable” (The Times of India), and a movie that “often seems aimed at people who died the moment Seinfeld ended, or at least whose TVs broke and were never fixed” (MattPais.com).
Unfrosted is supposed to be something of a spoof of the likes of Air or BlackBerry, but it lacks “snap, crackle and pop” (says CNN), so here are three much more entertaining alternative spoofs you’ll find among the best Netflix movies.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Benoit Blanc is back in another hugely entertaining comedy murder mystery, which is currently sitting at 91% from the critics and 92% from viewers on Rotten Tomatoes. As a repudiation of Seinfeld’s claims that they don’t make ’em like they used to, this is a distinctly old-school comedy with tons of charm, plenty of brains and some absolutely stellar performances – as well as what appears to be a particularly savage spoof of the antics of a certain social media-owning billionaire.
CNET called it “hugely satisfying” and, like many critics, praised Daniel Craig in particular, who is clearly having the time of his life, while Empire gave it 4/5 stars: it’s “a fizzy, gaudy, joyfully entertaining couple of hours. If there’s any right in the world, Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig will continue making films in the Benoit Blanc Cinematic Universe forever.” (There is at least one more Blanc movie coming.)
Top Secret!
Imagine Airplane!, but with Nazis and a particularly memorable sex-toy joke. That’s Top Secret! I’ve laughed myself insensible at this deeply silly movie many times, not least because the impossibly young Val Kilmer’s star turn here is absolutely (and deliberately, but po-facedly) hilarious. Kilmer plays a popular US singer who travels to Germany and ends up mixed up with the Resistance, with frequently hilarious consequences.
The film sends up everything from Elvis movies to spy flicks and, like Airplane!, is so gag-packed that it doesn’t matter if some don’t land. As Gene Siskel wrote on its release, it’s “not even half as funny as “Airplane!’ but still… a lot more clever than most movie comedies made today”; the San Francisco Examiner said that filmmakers “Abrahams-Zucker-Zucker scatter the jokes the way farmers scatter corn around a chicken house. They’re shameless.” It’s a very silly movie and a very funny one.
The Disaster Artist
Based on a true story, A24’s The Disaster Artist tells the story of aspiring film-maker Tommy Wiseau (James Franco) and his attempts to make the really bad cult classic The Room. According to Filmmaker Magazine, “Disaster Artist is a one-joke movie, and that joke is a person, but it’s a very good joke”; Deep Focus Review says that it captures “the same balance of admiration, mockery, and craft as Tim Burton’s Ed Wood”. The movie being made is “one of the worst ever films… it’s a film so terrible, so boundlessly, majestically surreal that it’s achieved cult classic status”, NME says, but its story is “the subject of one of 2017’s best”. It’s “a very funny, affectionate celebration of a man who did everything he could to make his dreams come true and failed”.
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