Lewis Black

  • Unaccompanied Minors (2006)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) As far as holiday comedies go, Unaccompanied Minors remains most distinctive today for being a pre-stardom film from comedy director Paul Feig, an interesting collection of known comics in cameos, and a premise (kids without supervision in a snowed-in airport) that could have gone to interesting places. Unfortunately, there isn’t much of a spatial restraint even in a snowstorm, as Unaccompanied Minors only spends its first act in the airport before going away and diffusing its own mounting tension. Lewis Black is in fine form as a cranky anti-Christmas airport manager, but it’s noteworthy that the ensemble cast of young kids doesn’t sport many recognizable names—instead, you’ll have to look at the cameos for nice roster of circa-2006 American film comedians in small roles. It’s disappointing that the film couldn’t make the most of the assets at its disposal: Trying to dismantle teenage angst in time for the holidays sounds nice, but the film doesn’t quite get the balance right between the slapstick and the drama, and moving the plot away from the airport (well, other than tracking one father’s odyssey to make a tough drive to pick up his kids) ends up lowering the temperature of the result. Unaccompanied Minors is still watchable, not objectionable in the least… but a bit disappointing.

  • Accepted (2006)

    Accepted (2006)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, March 2015) I’m not sure if there’s a recent dearth of college comedies, but I can tell you that Accepted acceptably hits the spot.  It’s not a refined or overly clever film, but the central premise –about rejected college applicants accidentally founding their own no-rejection college—is good for a few laughs.  Justin Long is likable as the protagonist who stumbles into becoming a college dean, whereas Jonah Hill plays a representative example of his early fat-nerd persona.  Farther away in the background, Lewis Black has a thunderous small role as a disillusioned ex-academic, while it’s fun to see Maria Thayer’s fiery curls light up scenes as a secondary character without much to say.  But it’s the film’s sense of pacing that works best: Despite a few odd misfires (the probably-improvised electric shock sequence, among others, feels out of place), Accepted’s editing is exemplary, complementing a script that often thrives on rapid-fire dialogue.  While the script eventually veers into idiot-plot territory in which everything is solved via One Big Speech, much of the film actually works well, and even the unlikeliness of its premise (as if community colleges didn’t exist…) actually work in the film’s glorious intent to deliver a silly college comedy no matter its preposterousness.  Accepted amply fulfills the basic requirements for a comedy: it’s fast, easy to watch, not terribly vulgar, largely amusing and often laugh-out-loud funny.  Heck, it may even send the viewer on a few flights of fancy as to what they would do in a similar situation, and whether the whole point of the college experience is simply paying for a social experience away from home.  While Accepted could have been a bit better with a bit more discipline, it’s enjoyable enough as it is.  Pick this one up for your own independent-scholar film appreciation class.